From baking cookies to firehouse duties, a day of service in NJ

For Joanne Pendleton, Martin Luther King's Birthday this year was a time to celebrate, decades after she marched in Washington for three years in a row to win recognition for the civil rights leader who had inspired a nation.

"It's a day where we celebrate Martin by doing for others," Pendleton, 55, of Pennsauken, said Monday at a Gloucester Township school gymnasium surrounded by 600 other volunteers who had gathered to perform a morning of community service.

Pendleton, a buyer at Boeing, said she and friend Beth Connolly, a child services dispatcher from Somerdale, and several family members would be sorting donated clothing that would be distributed to the homeless.

Martin Luther King's Birthday did not become an official national holiday until 1983, after much debate and protests. Pendleton said the day is now set aside to savor and to serve.

The Martin Luther King Day of Service in Gloucester Township this year offered 31 choices for volunteers, from making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and baking cookies for those in need of food to cleaning up a dog shelter and a firehouse to making tie-together blankets.

Orlando Mercado, an organizer and the town's council president, said the turnout was the largest since the event was established six years ago. Nearly 700 people registered this year, and Mercado said he expected 100 or so more to show up to help. The parking lot was overflowing, and people poured into the Charles W. Lewis Middle School all morning.

"People are interested in volunteering, and they just don't know where to go," he said. The classrooms at the school and rooms at nearby fire halls and senior centers quickly filled with adults and children willing to lend a hand.

"Any time you have students learning how to do for others and not for themselves, well, I don't think there's a better lesson," School Superintendent John Bilodeau said. "This is fantastic to witness."

The event was one of many around the region to give people the opportunity to volunteer and to celebrate King's legacy.

Jaiden Jones, 3, and his sisters, Nicoletta, 9, and Adrianna, 13, were among a group that baked chocolate chip cookies at the town's senior center so that they could be bagged and handed out at the Cathedral Kitchen, the largest soup kitchen in Camden. "I think it's important to make a difference and important for my children to see that all colors are accepted and loved," said their mother, Diane, 35. a supervisor with the town's Recreation Department.

In previous years the family participated in painting a town hockey rink and taught Zumba to seniors, she said.

"Everyone gets to work together, and there's less of racism," Adrianna said when she was asked for her opinion about the day's purpose.

Jackson Smith, 7, of Wenonah, did his part by creating colorful messages that would be tied to the bags of cookies. "I like to make people laugh and when the people read it they will feel better," he said in explaining why he inserted jokes in his notes. "When would you take a cookie to the doctor?" he asked. "When it feels crummy."

Jackson said that the day "is about helping" and that it made him feel good to join with others.

Cousins Matthew Gordon, 7, and Dominique Stith, 8, of Blackwood, were busy globing peanut butter and smearing grape jelly on piles of white bread. They wore hygienic gloves and big smiles as the adults wiped up.

"It helps other people who are less fortunate have food, and I loved learning how to make these sandwiches," Matthew said. "I made turkey and cheese sandwiches before but not these." Dominique pointed to their little masterpieces and said, "This was easy. And fun."

jhefler@phillynews.com

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