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Local day of service, an eye to the world

The first time Mable E. Welborn and her daughter attended a Martin Luther King Jr. event was the 1963 March on Washington - and Desiree Wayne was not quite 2 months old.

The first time Mable E. Welborn and her daughter attended a Martin Luther King Jr. event was the 1963 March on Washington - and Desiree Wayne was not quite 2 months old.

"My daughter was born in July and on Aug. 28, I took her with me to the march," said Welborn, now chair of the board of the Leon H. Sullivan Charitable Trust Foundation.

Mother and daughter were again together yesterday, this time at Girard College in North Philadelphia for the 15th Annual Greater Philadelphia Martin Luther King Day of Service. They went door-to-door giving energy-efficient light bulbs to city residents.

But Wayne, 46, wasn't supposed to be in the city yesterday.

Wayne, an attorney, is executive director of the Lamp for Haiti, a nonprofit Philadelphia-based organization that has provided medical aid and human-rights legal services in Haiti since 2006.

Wayne was supposed to travel to Haiti on Sunday, but the flight she'd booked in November wasn't able to fly into the country whose capital, Port-au-Prince, was devastated by an earthquake Jan. 12.

"We serve the poorest of the poor in Haiti, where people already didn't have enough food to eat before this earthquake hit," an emotional Wayne said.

Of the 70,000 people participating in Day of Service events around the city yesterday, 3,000 were at Girard College, where George Guy, principal of the A. Russell Knight Elementary School in Cherry Hill, his wife, Inna Rae Guy, and their sons, B.G., age 10, and Joshua, "almost 8," volunteered.

The family packed new pajamas and books into kits to be donated here to children at Salvation Army shelters for the homeless or for people temporarily homeless due to fires.

"At first, I didn't really want to come, but I suppose what I'm doing to help people is important," said B.G., a fifth-grader.

Volunteers packed boxes for the Million Books Project, which donates books to schools in Sierra Leone and to schools in the Philadelphia region, said founder Carol Bangura. Bangura was born in Sierra Leone and came to the United States with her family when she was 6 years old.

Other volunteers made chalkboards for day-care centers or taught some people how to recycle old T-shirts into tote bags instead of using plastic bags for grocery shopping.

Across town, the Rev. Audrey Bronson, president of the Black Clergy of Philadelphia and Vicinity, gave the sermon at the Philadelphia NAACP event at Triumph Baptist Church, Germantown and Hunting Park avenues.

And nearly 600 people attended the annual luncheon of the Philadelphia Martin Luther King Jr. Association for Nonviolence at the Sheraton Philadelphia City Center Hotel.

One young man , Serigne Fall, 15, attends a cyber charter school and works as a legislative aide to state Rep. Kenyatta Johnson.

Fall said he became interested in politics at age 13 when he volunteered for President Obama's campaign.

"I was inspired by then-Sen. Obama when it came to the call of service in finding the common purpose all Americans hold," the teen said. He also credited Johnson, "my mentor," and the late state Sen. Hardy Williams, "a powerful inspirational" force, as influences.

Joye Nottage, executive director of the King Association, said the organization mentors about 300 young people a year, in a program to encourage them to attend college. It also started a new year-round "Educational Ambassadors for Nonviolence" to help teens "live the nonviolent principles" of King.

"A lot of people think all the King Association does every year is have a luncheon," Nottage said. "But this is our main fundraiser for all of the programs we run for children and teens every day of the year."