Despite the cold and rain, volunteers joined Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman at Tempe Town Lake early Monday morning to clean the park, rake leaves and plant trees.
Volunteer groups like McCarthy Construction’s Heart Hats, Trees for Tempe and Clean Air Cab were all in attendance at Monday’s King Day of Service.
“This is the right way to honor Martin Luther King Jr.,” Hallman said.
“We end up spending way too much time in brunches and dinners and parades, and frankly there’s one person that stands for rolling up sleeves and getting involved in the community, and that’s Martin Luther King Jr.,” he said. “That’s why I’m out here today.”
On Sunday Hallman ran the half marathon at the P.F. Chang’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Arizona marathon, and said he runs every year to raise money for local charities through donors.
With help from other volunteers he recruited and event sponsor McCarthy construction, Hallman has raised more than $500,000 for this event and others like it.
Denise Rentschler with Community Outreach and Marketing at the city of Tempe Parks and Recreation, is in charge of the event and volunteers.
“We’ve teamed up with Trees for Tempe and we’re cleaning the park here, putting new plants and doing an overall cleanup of the area,” Rentschler said. “We’re excited to kick it off with this great program.”
Lonnie Calbert, a full-time volunteer, runs the Heart Hats program.
“McCarthy offers its employees one paid community service day each year,” Calbert said. “It’s the company’s philosophy to support community service projects.”
Brittany Bennett, marketing manager for Tempe-based company Clean Air Cab, said the company plants 10 trees for every one of its cabs on the road in support of local and global forestation.
In the next three years they plan to plant 23,000 trees.
“It’s great that we’re volunteering on Martin Luther King [Jr.] Day,” Calbert said. “It makes it that much more worthwhile.”
Reach the reporter at mmbarke1@asu.edu
