CHICAGO (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Whether it’s helping elderly neighbors with shoveling snow or gathering to create picket signs for an upcoming march, a day of service has become the traditional way to celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his legacy on the holiday bearing his name.
Although some MLK Day service activities were reduced or brought inside as bitterly cold temperatures blanket the region, a number of local volunteers and elected officials still managed to give back on Monday.
One of those efforts, led by Illinois Rep. LaShawn Ford, was focused on creating a significant and lasting impact in addressing the opioid crisis and homelessness in Chicago.
The state representative collaborated with Health Care Alternative Systems, the West Side Heroin Opioid Task Force, schools, community organizations, businesses and social services to distribute Narcan, perform community outreach training, and visit homeless tent encampments to deliver hot soup and sandwiches.
The Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office reported that Chicago saw more than 1,400 opioid-related deaths in 2023.
Elsewhere in the city, Mayor Brandon Johnson attended an MLK Day event organized by Rainbow PUSH at the Apostolic Church of God on Chicago’s South Side.
The Southland Prep Charter High School Choir filled the church with music to benefit the PUSH-Excel Scholarship program. Rev. Dr. Byron Braiser, the church’s senior pastor, welcomed hundreds who attended.
“As we approach this celebration, this is a celebration for those who are coming behind us, generations,” he said.
Johnson told the audience that many of them are the manifestation of the dream.
“The very hall and the halls of power that I now occupy, there were people like Ald. Jeanette Taylor and I, that were blocking the very elevators that now … have ushered an entire political movement to bring about the transformation that those before us could only dream of,” he said.
Johnson and others, though, noted that there’s still resistance — and much more work to do.
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