Here’s a video from the “King Day of Service” at Abington Friends.

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About 600 volunteers participated in “King Day of Service” projects at Abington Friends School on January 15, lending a hand to projects that benefited at least 11 local organizations that help those in need, according to Lower School Director Andrea Emmons.

Volunteers made soup; created fleece blankets, hats and scarves; sewed teddy bears; assembled activity kits for children; cooked hot meals; built birdhouses out of recycled materials; designed colorful placemats and much more.

The Upper School was a beehive of activity in late morning when U.S. Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) stopped by to talk with the volunteers and thank them for their work. While in the Student Commons, he sat next to youngsters at a table and completed a get well card and cup for Sara’s Smiles, a foundation that helps children who have been diagnosed with cancer.

In the Stewart Lobby, the varsity basketball team, led by Coach Steve Chadwin, sorted books for a public school library. When they finished, they joined in a huddle, put their fists together, and said their familiar “Roos!” cheer. On this special day, they added one more: “MLK!” Then, Coach C told the boys to “go home and study.”

Though most of the volunteers worked on projects in the school, others participated at A Step Up Academy next to the Meeting House; at two local retirement centers and at Girard College, the flagship center of “King Day of Service” activity in Philadelphia.

AFS partnered with McKinley Elementary School and A Step Up Academy in sponsoring the event here. Local organizations that benefited were: Aid for Friends; the Breathing Room Foundation; Sara’s Smiles; Face to Face Germantown; Kitty Cottage Adoption Center; Mitzvah Circle; St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children; Tookany/Tacony-Frankford Watershed Partnership; the Women’s Center of Montgomery County; Community Legal Services, and Whosoever Gospel Mission.

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The used clothing sale that is held annually in conjunction with the “King Day of Service,” this year raised $1,540 — even though the highest price charged was only $3. The sale was held on the mornings of January 13 and January 15  in the Lower School. Volunteers, led by Paula Cohen Corbman, Director of Early Childhood Admission, and Suzanne Pitcairn P’17, P’20, had spent hours sorting the donated clothes by type and size, and stacking them neatly on classroom tables. Proceeds were given to the Montgomery County Women’s Center’s domestic-violence-prevention program.