For nearly 20 years the Ames community has been staging a Martin Luther King Jr. celebration. It started at the public library and when the event outgrew it, moved to the Boys and Girls club, then the Ames High School and now have settled, at least for the last two years, on the Ames Middle School.

This year’s focus was on service. As a part of the day’s events, nearly 200 members of the community came together under the direction of United Ames and the Volunteer Center of Story County to work on a community garden for the Ames homeless, which will be located at the Trinity Church on Ontario Street.

After an afternoon of building park benches and leaving their ideas for the garden on a mural at the volunteer center, Ames community members filled the cafeteria of the Ames Middle School to enjoy cake donated by local grocery stores and the Ames High School Jazz Band.

A steady stream of people trickled in between 6–6:30 p.m., and many of them sent their children over to a corner where Members of AmeZone — a community youth service project — and United Ames staffed a food donation table which was completely full by the time the program started.

The food was slated for the MICA food pantry in Ames.

Andrea Henry, executive director of the YWCA, said the celebration is funded by both the Government of the Student Body and the Assault Care Center Extending Shelter and Support.

“Most of this is put on by volunteers, though,” she said. “We want to celebrate Martin Luther King’s life as well as encourage the elimination of racism in the community.”

At about 6:30 p.m., people were let into the auditorium where they were greeted by a choir made up of K-5 students from Meeker Elementary School.

“We are not alone,” they sang, “We shall overcome someday.”

The auditorium bustled with activity as most of its occupants were children under the age of 5. During the choir performance and after, children ran jubilantly through the aisles laughing and giggling.

Paxton Williams, an Iowa State alumnus, played the role of George Washington Carver for the evening.

He walked down the central aisle of the auditorium shaking hands with children and laughing at their antics.

“Look then over, the wise and the great, they take their food from a common plate,” he said. “You are the handicap you must face.”

Williams said afterward he tried to focus his message on the commonalities between people who were considered great and ordinary people.

“That’s from a poem called ‘Equipment’ written by Edward Guest,” he said to the crowd. “It’s one of my favorites.”

Williams, who also spoke at the volunteer event earlier Monday, said he wanted people to understand the link between Carver and King.

Carver was asked to help develop a special diet for Gandhi who often fasted for political reasons and Gandhi was a well known hero of King’s.

“So, essentially, Carver helped physically nourish Gandhi who, later, philosophically nourished Gandhi,” Williams said.

He was impressed by the people who showed up to volunteer for the community garden.

“They didn’t have to be there and do what they did, just like Dr. King didn’t have to do what he did,” Williams said with a pause after being approached by a young girl who wanted to shake his hand. “That’s what I love about this job,” he said with a smile.

Williams said one of the reasons he performed as Carver was to help people remember to whom they owed the comforts of their lives and the freedoms they are afforded.

“I think, sadly, we forget what the things that we’ve got cost to the people who got them for us,” he said. “I think that’s what makes this day great.”