We recommend you host your MLK Read for Peace the Friday before the three-day MLK weekend. This makes the information more relevant to students and gives them extra time to work on their activity.

Identify one or more elementary schools in your community that may be interested in the event. Contact the principals with your idea. They will be able to tell you any screening requirements for volunteers in the district, and they can also share information about the event with teachers. For your first year, try to keep the number of schools relatively small. In Missoula’s first year, only 25 volunteers served in five schools, but they reached more than 500 students.

We suggest contacting local organizations and businesses to highlight the work of your community’s young people. Good options may include a downtown display sponsored by your Chamber of Commerce or an art display at the mall or public library.

Reach out to local school administrators or contacts for guidance on how best to reach K-5th grade teachers. Use provided template to collect the following information:

• School name (if you are hosting the event at multiple schools)
• Teacher’s name and email
• Grade
• Number of students in the classroom (for activities and reporting)
• Time the teacher would like the volunteer to visit (this event usually lasts 45-60 minutes, depending on students’ questions)
• Whether or not the teacher would like to combine classrooms with another teacher for the event. If yes, be sure to find out who the other teacher is and how many students are in their class.

Check with the school libraries for recommendations on age-appropriate books about Dr. King. As teachers sign their classrooms up for the event, you will be able to determine how many books you need at each school. MTCC has donated MLK books to local school libraries for the past several years, so they might have them available.

The activities for your event should help students reflect on the ideas of peace and equality. These are common themes of books about Dr. King’s life and work. Racial discrimination and the civil rights movement are too complex for a one-day event, so MTCC staff have developed pre- and post-visit curricula to expand the learning opportunity for students. These curricula will be updated soon. Previous events have included these activities: a coloring activity, a drawing, and a poem. The drawing activity is typically used with younger students, and the poem is used with older (3rd-5th grade) students. These are included in the MTCC MLK Read for Peace Toolkit.

Work with local volunteer organizations to find experienced, committed volunteers for your event. If available, reach out to local colleges or universities for student volunteers. Examples of college student volunteers are local athletic teams, student senate members, clubs, education students, and volunteer organizations. This provides a tremendous opportunity for local students to give back to their community by way of Read for Peace. Consider recruiting AmeriCorps members, AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers, and Big Brothers Big Sisters volunteers. Afterschool programs, fraternities, and sororities are also great resources for volunteer recruitment. Invite your local representatives such as the mayor and city and county council members as well to volunteer. These VIPs help to highlight national service in your community, but also help with earned media exposure.

Because AmeriCorps members and AmeriCorps Seniors volunteers are required to participate in an MLK Day of Service event, they generally constitute the majority of MLK Read for Peace volunteers. Teachers may also have regular classroom volunteers who would like to work with that particular class. When you begin recruitment, let teachers know they can pass the information on to any parent or community volunteers they know. Consider using online tools like SignUpGenius when recruiting and scheduling volunteers. Google Sheets will allow you to create a spreadsheet with available classrooms and times that volunteers can use to sign up. Also remember that some school districts may require volunteers to undergo further registration and/or screening.

Work with the school secretaries to set up a system where your volunteers can check in at the front desk of the school on the day of the event and pick up their book, instructions, and activities. Use the classroom sizes you collected from teachers to ensure you have enough activity sheets. Remember, if more than one volunteer will use the same book, let the secretaries know and make sure to leave instructions for each individual volunteer that include the name of their book. If you will borrow books from the school library, ask the librarians to have the books available at the front desk for volunteers the day before the event.

Select one or two people to be in charge of activities on the day of the event. Volunteers may not show up, books may not be returned to the front desk for the next class, and a class may decide to join another at the last minute. Designating one or two point people to handle these problems will help the event run smoother and keep things moving. A few members of your organization may volunteer to be back-up readers, books can be quickly tracked down if you have the contact information for volunteers and teachers, and extra copies of activities can be made easily at the schools. With good preparation, your MLK Read for Peace event should go off without a hitch.

Part of participation in Read for Peace includes reporting the impact of your local project. This helps us to be able to share your good work and continue to receive funding in the future. Designate an individual to serve as the reporter for your local project.

Once you have collected and displayed students’ activities, be sure to spread the word. You may have chosen to send a press release about your event to local media. It is important to include information about the activity display in any press release. This way the public can experience the event as well and see the wonderful work of your community’s youth.