Day of service

Celebrating the Martin Luther King holiday with service projects is not really new. But President Obama's call for mass participation this year led to doubling of the number of projects known to the MLK Day.gov site, where the slogan is "Make it a day on, not a day off."

Obama's fans came out in force.


In the Mission district, a group assembled to pick up street litter. We always have ample supplies of that.


Each little crew was sent off with maps of their turf -- just as many probably had been when canvassing during the campaign. They were told not to pick up needles -- just mark the location for the Department of Public Works to follow up. I usually step on and crush stray needles myself. It seems like a public spirited thing to do.


Over by Bernal Heights, just off Bayshore, a group came together to clean out below an underpass.


There was plenty of trash just behind CalTrans' fences.


And lots up against the fences too.


Adventurous cleaners went over the fence.


And found a lot of stinky stuff. ***I admit to some ambivalence about these projects. President Obama clearly wants to remind us that sometimes individual satisfaction has to be put aside for the sake of the community. (The guy is beginning to act like the national kindergarten teacher ... that's okay I suppose. We need one.)

His lesson seems good and necessary. But it also seems a little hokie. Can't we form communities that are a little more organic, that seem less contrived? Don't we know we survive by caring for each other? Maybe we only remember the obvious if we occasionally repeat the lesson.


On the way home, I drove down Cesar Chavez Street.


The usual clusters of unemployed day laborers stood along the sidewalks, occasionally waving at a passing truck, hoping for some pick up work.


These folks work, if lucky, for a pittance everyday, doing the sorts of stuff the volunteer crews were dabbling at. Many of them are supporting families south of the border. I imagine they have some community among themselves -- they certainly have a common interest in avoiding the immigration police.

Their community, whatever shape it takes and I don't claim to know, seems an almost infinite distance from the good people sweeping and bagging trash in today's King day projects.