“Life’s most persistent and urgent question,” the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., said 60 years ago, “is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”

The spirit of neighbors helping neighbors shined bright and clear on the 2023 Martin Luther King, Jr., National Day of Service (MLK Day) as L.A. Works, a Listos California grantee that leads and mobilizes volunteer outreach across the Los Angeles region, brought thousands of volunteers together at the Los Angeles Coliseum. The aim: to celebrate, remember, and serve while also taking positive community actions and sharing information and opportunities.

L.A. Works’ MLK Day focus on collective action to alleviate the disproportionate impact climate disruption, natural disasters and extreme weather have on Black, Brown, Indigenous and low-income people coincided with California’s most destructive floods in decades.

At the event, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, recently elected as the first woman and second African American in that role, set the tone by noting there is no better way to honor Dr. King’s legacy “than to do what you’re doing here today. The spirit of volunteering, the spirit of helping other people, to me, is exactly how we should celebrate his birthday… to recommit to his vision, to recommit to his dream and to continue moving our city forward.”

Energized volunteers at the Coliseum then set out on activities L.A. Works set before them: creating urban greening kits that will serve school programs and youth centers in South L.A.; taking tree-planting pledges and building native plant awareness packs that can help reduce atmospheric pollutants; and packing 2,000 Go Bags that L.A. Works volunteers later distributed in traditionally underserved communities.

Included in each Go Bag: English or Spanish copies of Listos California’s Disaster Ready Guide, along with an emergency blanket, ready-to-eat protein snacks, first-aid supplies, and more.

“We’re here to make sure that Black and Brown and low-income communities have the information they need to stay safe and be prepared for the eventual disaster that comes our way,” Debbie Brutchey, executive director of L.A. Works, said at the bag assembly site.

“The volunteers here are learning about the issues as well,” Brutchey added. “It’s really this wonderful trickle effect that more and more people can understand how everything is connected and their actions impact others in the Los Angeles community.”

“Listos California is a really big supporter of L.A. Works,” Brutchey noted. “We have Americorps and Vista members who are part of our organization thanks to the Listos funding. And then they’re able to organize volunteers all year round to get the word out about disaster readiness in underserved communities.”

Brutchey said she tries to heed the advice in the Disaster Ready Guides that volunteers packed into kits at the MLK Day of Remembrance.

“I have a Go Bag at home. I have two girls and my husband, and we have to be prepared in case of a disaster.”