Food drive, leadership academy highlight MLK Day in Elgin

Instead of using the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday as a day off, more than 300 people called it a “day on” and participated in Elgin’s Youth Day of Community Service.

The mostly middle and high school student crowd spent Monday morning sorting more than five tons of food collected in a food drive and volunteering in the community at various sites. The afternoon was dedicated to a leadership academy with a keynote speaker and five workshop offerings.

Dianha Ortega-Ehreth, executive director of the Youth Leadership Academy, organized the day’s events, saying Martin Luther King Day is supposed to be a day of service — something the U.S. Congress made official in 1994.

“This was Elgin’s way of getting on board with the rest of the country,” Ortega-Ehreth said.

Channing Sparks, 12, is in her first year with the Youth Leadership Academy. She sorted food donations Monday morning and then participated in a workshop learning about what life was like when King was alive, fighting for desegregation and civil rights.

Sparks, a Central Middle School student in Burlington, said learning the history about how it was harder for blacks in the 1960s will help her confront racism in her own school.

“It will better help me stand up and tell people not to say things like that,” Sparks said.

Vance Blackfox, a youth leadership development and diversity training consultant, presented on Understanding Diversity and the ways good leaders use everyone’s strengths to make progress.

“We always need to be thinking about who’s not at the table,” Blackfox said during his session. “Whose gifts are we missing?”

In another room of The Centre, Elgin Community College professor David Zacker was asking the students in his workshop about defining wisdom, knowledge and civil disobedience. His session, Philosophy of Civil Disobedience, was an extension of the conversations he hosts through the Socrates Cafe discussion group.

Other workshops covered nonviolence, personal responsibility and faith and leadership.

Debbie Patino, an 18-year-old Hampshire High School senior, served as emcee for the conference. She said everything went better than expected.

“It got me thinking, so that was cool,” Patino said.