HE WAS BORN on Jan. 15, 1929, in Atlanta, and named for his father, the Rev. Michael King.
After the family visited Europe in 1934, his father changed both their names to honor the German priest who challenged Catholic authority in the 16th century, precipitating a religious revolution.
At age 9, he sang at the premier of “Gone With the Wind” with his church choir.
He attended Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta but didn’t graduate, skipping ninth and 12th grades to start college at age 15.
These facts about Martin Luther King Jr., culled from the Internet, might not be familiar, even to people who saw him on news broadcasts leading civil rights marches in Selma, preaching on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial or walking arm in arm with striking garbage workers in Memphis on that fatal day in April 1968.
But the meaning of Dr. King’s life has not been forgotten.
On Monday, more than a dozen AmeriCorps volunteers, most born more than a decade after King died, picked up hammers, saws and paintbrushes to help finish the exterior of a house being built by Habitat of Humanity/East Jefferson County.
Their labor was a boost for the project, a five-bedroom house for a woman and her six children that epitomizes the promise that King envisioned.
“I’m really happy with what I’m seeing getting done,” said Rachel Williams, an AmeriCorps alumna who is now the construction coordinator for Habitat/EJC.
“The goal is the end of March to be done, and so far we’re on schedule.”
The house is the largest that the Habitat chapter has ever built, and also the first one that the organization has constructed during the winter instead of taking a break.
Local volunteers worked in the pouring rain in the fall, Williams said, but so far, the winter has been mild.
“Since the first of the year, this is the seventh work day, and we’ve had decent weather for all of them,” Williams said.
That’s why Katie Allen was up on the roof of the front porch, nailing siding on Monday morning instead of going to work at the Wooden Boat Foundation.
With her was Sarah Dommell, an AmeriCorps volunteer who works in emergency services for Olympic Community Action Programs and organizer of the work project.
Down on the ground, Elena Carianna, who is from New Orleans, was measuring and cutting siding to length. Her normal Monday duties include organizing meetings at the Boiler Room, where she is the volunteer coordinator.
For other AmeriCorps volunteers working on the project, Monday would have been a day off.
Alex Haworth, 24, works out of Port Angeles office of OlyCAP, doing auditing and assessments for the weatherization program. Now living in Sequim, Haworth was born in England and grew up in Philadelphia.
Alex had more than one reason for volunteering for the Habitat work day.
“I attended a Quaker college, Earlham, which has always valued the idea of service,” Alex said. “This is also a great way to meet other AmeriCorps volunteers. What better way to spend Martin Luther King Day?”
Ryan Hoff, 23, also would have had a day off from his job with the Jefferson County Health Department.
Ryan, who is from Vancouver, Wash., works at the school-based medical clinics at Port Townsend and Chimacum high schools, doing basic medical assisting and outreach.
That means he’s usually not free to volunteer for other projects, but with the school holiday, he was available.
“It’s a way to contribute in a meaningful way,” Ryan said of why he signed up to work on the house, which will house Francis Lanphear and her children.
“It helps them get on their feet and into a space that’s environmentally friendly.”
Jessica Swihart, Julia Ledbetter, Valerie Lindborg and Heather Jones would have been cleaning aquarium tanks at the Port Townsend Marine Science Center and getting ready to teach classes the next day.
All four are AmeriCorps volunteers at the center, Jessica from Tallahasse, Fla.; Julia from Portland, Ore.; Valerie from Lake Stevens; and Heather from Stafford, Va.
Heather said she has always wanted to work on a build, just like her big sister.
“My sister, Amanda Jones, worked for Habitat in Americus, Ga.,” Heather said. “She was the collegiate challenge coordinator. She’s done a lot of builds with Jimmy Carter.”
Habitat for Humanity has a direct link to Dr. King SEmD according to the publication Habitchat, the organization grew out of a community in Americus, called Koinonia, whose members were committed to social justice and racial equality despite threats, shootings and bombings.
The harassment brought it to the attention of Dr. King and Habitat founders Millard and Linda Fuller.
In 1957, Dr. King wrote a letter of encouragement to its founder after the Ku Klux Klan attempted to intimidate community members into selling the property and failed.
According to board member Elizabeth Andrews, Habitat for Humanity/East Jefferson County was one of 150 Habitat affiliates in the United States that had AmeriCorps volunteers working on construction sites on the day of service.
Another team of AmeriCorps volunteers is scheduled to work Thursday, which should get most of the siding up, Williams said.
“The whole idea of service is to take time to do something for your community,” Williams said. “The whole AmeriCorps program is a great embodiment of that.”
For Shannon Petitjean, 24, the project was even more meaningful SEmD she lives just a few blocks from the build site, off Sheridan Avenue.
A Quilcene High School graduate who grew up in Brinnon, she works as a teacher’s assistant for the Head Start preschool at Grant Street Elementary, which is also nearby.
“I like that we’re helping out the neighborhood,” Shannon said. “I’ve mixed concrete by hand and cut siding. Now I’m painting trim.”
Michael Bowe, who lives on Marrowstone Island, was the only AmeriCorps volunteer on the Habitat work crew who wasn’t in his 20s. But the reason he was there was the same as his younger counterparts.
“Everybody needs to take care of everybody else,” Bowe said. “That’s a part of the basic belief system.”
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Jennifer Jackson writes about Port Townsend and Jefferson County every Wednesday. To contact her with items for this column, phone 360-379-5688 or e-mail jjackson@olypen.com.
