By Kelly White
In honor of Martin Luther King Jr., a group of teens gathered together for a day of giving back to the local community.
Together, the Bridge Teen Center and The Bridge Thrift Store in Orland Park hosted a Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Project on Monday, January 15. The event helped to honor Dr. King’s legacy of coming together to support each other helping to make the world a better place for future generations.
“For me, it is exciting to see the business community rally around Dr. King’s vision for service to others,” Aaron Heldt, The Bridge’s Director of Marketing and Partnerships, said. “We are honored to have a pretty amazing lineup of businesses who send volunteer groups over throughout the year, but to see groups from Starbucks and Crate & Barrel brave the cold to serve this community was a powerful thing to be part of.”
Despite the dangerously cold temperatures, in total we had over 65 volunteers at the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Project.
During the two-hour event, teens, family members and volunteers from the community formed a number of teams. The largest team helped sort and organize clothing donations. Another team helped stock clothing and other merchandise on the sales floor. Other smaller teams washed and processed glassware and dishware donations and sorted jewelry donations. This inventory will generate thousands of dollars in support of The Bridge’s mission.
“It’s really nice to be able to give back,” Brody McLaughlin, 13, of Orland Park, said.
Brody worked alongside his mom, Luz.
“The best part about this is being here with him,” Luz said.
The Bridge Teen Center is a nonprofit community center that was designed around the interests and needs of teens in the suburbs, serving students in seventh- to 12th-grade and also provide ongoing programs and resources to help parents navigate through the teenage years.
The center opened in 2010 at 15555 S. 71st Court, Orland Park, and has served over 12,000 different teens and families from 128 Chicago Southland and Northwest Indiana communities.
“The Bridge always strives to encourage students to not just be consumers, but also to be contributors through community service events like this one,” Priscilla Steinmetz, Founder and Executive Director of The Bridge, said. “We have always been committed to making sure our students don’t just exist within a community, but understand how to be an active, contributing part of the community.”
The Bridge Thrift Store is the sister organization of The Bridge Teen Center and its mission is to provide ongoing community service and job readiness opportunities for suburban teens as well as ongoing financial support for The Bridge Teen Center’s free teen programs.
In addition, The Bridge Thrift Store provides ongoing community service and job readiness opportunities to suburban teens. In 2024, The Bridge Thrift Store will be expanding with the opening of a new store in Frankfort, creating a second sustainable revenue source and expanding on the job readiness programming for students.
Tying the organizations together through service, the center hosted the Martin Luther King Jr. Community Service Project open to all area community teens and their families and to local businesses as well within the Orland Park vicinity.
Martin Luther King Jr. Day, being the official birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., and often referred to shorthand as MLK Day, is a federal holiday in the United States marking the birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr. Born in 1929, King’s actual birthday is January 15; however, it is observed on the third Monday of January each year.
The motto behind the day is a ‘a day on, not a day off’. Organizations throughout the country, like the Teen Bridge Center, participate by creating volunteer opportunities to better their community.
On Monday morning, a number of volunteers from Wilton Brands, Crate & Barrel, Starbucks, and University of Chicago Alumni meet at the Teen Bridge Center and The Bridge Thrift Store to sort donations of clothing and items to be sold at The Bridge Thrift Store.
In the afternoon, Bridge Teen Center members and their family members volunteered together, serving side-by-side, creating memories and growing closer through an afternoon of service and intentional conversations while also helping to organizing and sort items for the thrift store.
“My favorite thing about the MLK Community Service Project is that individuals and families from all walks of life are able to come together to honor Dr. King’s legacy of service on a local level,” Steinmetz said. “If we all carried that spirit of service right here in our backyard year-round, I can only imagine the profound impact it would have on our community.”
Assisting among many others were Angela Yudt and her son, Shawn.
“I love this event,” Yudt, of Orland Park, said. “I would volunteer here regularly for years with my older son, who is now 20-years-old. Now, it’s Shawn’s turn.”
The community service project continued to pave success for the Teen Bridge Center because The Bridge Thrift Store provides over 31% of funding to the teen center, helping to keep all after-school programs and services free to suburban teens and their families and providing teens with a place to find hope, purpose and direction. Examples of our free programs at the Bridge Teen Center include culinary demonstrations, music lessons, art programs, trades-focused programs, STEM programs and Friday night social events.
Brothers and Bridge students, Harry and Max Gilbert, have attended a number of culinary and automotive programs at The Bridge Teen Center. On Monday, they gave back to The Bridge serving together by the clothing donation storage area keeping our volunteer sorters stocked with bags to process.
“My favorite thing about volunteering today was seeing the amount of people that came to serve to make a difference,” Harry Gilbert, of Homer Glen, said. “The Bridge does great work and I have learned a lot in the programs I have done.”
“The Bridge offers a lot for students, and I especially like the culinary programs,” his brother, Max, added. “I enjoyed volunteering on this special day because I feel like I was helping the community.”
