University Announces Celebration of King's Legacy
Rockhurst University will celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a day of events honoring the civil rights leader’s commitment to educate and serve others.
The celebration is presented by the University’s offices of residence life, community relations and outreach, campus ministry and the Center for Service Learning.
“When we first started hosting this observance, we wanted ‘educate, celebrate and serve’ to stand as kind of the main components of the day,” said Emily Kempf, assistant director of residence life and multicultural education coordinator for Rockhurst.
The observance begins at 1 p.m. Monday, Jan. 20, when groups of campus volunteers take part in a variety of service projects around the city:
- Baking cookies at three different sites on campus to take to area shelters and soup kitchens.
- Assembling toiletry bags for the Holy Family House.
- Making fleece blankets for the Gillis Center.
- Giving away hot chocolate for the riders of the Troost Max bus at 39th Street and Troost Avenue and at 75th Street and Troost Avenue.
- Outdoor garden bed preparation at the Discovery Center.
- Clean up along Brush Creek.
- Paying for laundry and talking to patrons at a local laundromat.
At 3 p.m., the University will host a screening of “Art Saved My Life,” a film directed by Kansas City native Damon Lee Patterson in Mabee Theater inside Sedgwick Hall. The film centers on the positive power that arts education can have and features one-on-one interviews with a variety of artists from different disciplines, including rapper Tech N9ne, Grammy-nominated jazz saxophonist Bobby Watson, and Justin Brewster of The Kansas City Marching Falcons.
In keeping with the theme of the day, Kempf said the audience will also be included in activities after the a screening.
“We’re going to do a short performance with some of the artists,” after a question and answer session with Patterson, she said. “Then there will be breakout sessions and an opportunity for those in the audience to learn from those artists firsthand.”
Spoken word artist Natasha El-Scari and singer-songwriter Nicolette Paige take the stage for live performances. Muralist and painter Alexander Austin and yoga coach Theresa Goodman will lead the following breakout sessions on their particular art forms with audience members.
The showing of “Art Saved My Life” is free and open to the public, but all children under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult. Large groups are encouraged to RSVP to Kacie Otto, international student coordinator, on or before Jan. 16 by calling 816-501-4157.