Teens from across the state gather in Boston for service event honoring, MLK, Coretta Scott King
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A day after the unveiling of “The Embrace” sculpture in Boston honoring Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King, hundreds of Massachusetts teenagers gathered Saturday to continue the couple’s work using the mission statement: “Embrace Hope. Embrace Unity. Embrace Love.”
The calls to action were displayed on banners at Faneuil Hall for an assembly of nearly 400eighth-graders who were selected this year to participate in a leadership and community service program sponsored by Project 351, a nonprofit organization.
“I’m very honored … to be here,” said Mary MacDonald, 13, of Taunton, who was selected by her school to take part in the program. McDonald, who has a congenital condition that requires her to use a wheelchair, won a national title in 2021 from the Miss Amazing organization, which holds pageants for girls with disabilities.
Being selected for Project 351 ”just means so much,” MacDonald said Saturday. “There’s so many people out there who need help.”
This year’s opening day for Project 351 marked the first time the organization has hosted an in-person event to welcome new participants since the COVID-19 pandemic began in 2020, organizers said.
Students from across the state were bused to Faneuil Hall for a kick-off event honoring the Kings. The nonprofit group was established in 2011 and its name is a reference to the 351 cities and towns in Massachusetts.
Governor Maura Healey told the students that the gathering gave her hope. She encouraged the teenagers to push for positive change by tapping into their “inner toddler,” a younger version of themselves who pursued their desires with willful determination.
“Just refuse to accept the status quo,” Healey said. “Honestly, so much of the change that happens, the ideas that take hold in our communities, they come from people like you.”
She was joined onstage by Imari Paris Jeffries, the executive director of Embrace Boston, the group behind “The Embrace” sculpture, and Palak Yadav, 15, a 10th-grader from Medway and Project 351 alumna.
The moderator, Lisa Hughes, a news anchor for WBZ-TV, asked Paris Jeffries, Yadav, and Healey to share the best advice they’ve received.
Paris Jeffries said he was encouraged to remember that he is “a steward of someone else’s legacy.” He cited the example of Coretta Scott King, who introduced her husband’s vision to new generations after his assassination in 1968.
Yadav offered this as the best advice she’s ever received: “You are enough.”
“You have everything within you to change whatever you want to change, be whatever you want to be,” she said.
Healey said the best advice she ever received came from her mother and grandmother, who encouraged her to be kind.
“The ripple effects of that, you won’t even see, but they are really profound,” she said. “And the most profound things happen in the simplest of ways.”
At the end of the kickoff event, the students bused to four locations in Boston, Newton, and Chelsea where they worked on community service projects. The students were organized into teams named after prominent leaders.
One team was named for Enoch O’Dell “Woody” Woodhouse II, one of the last surviving Tuskegee Airmen. The crowd at Faneuil Hall sang “Happy Birthday” to Woodhouse, who turned 96 on Saturday.
“The greatest joy is to see young people, Project 351, to know that our country and state is in good shape,” Woodhouse said in an interview. “I’m energized by seeing all young people.”
Donnell Davis, 14, of Hyde Park, was assigned to Woodhouse’s team.
“It’s very uplifting to know you’re part of a bigger community,” he said.
Another team honored Jeff Perrotti, the founding director of the Safe Schools Program for LGBTQ Students in Massachusetts.
Perrotti told his team about a speech Martin Luther King Jr. gave to junior high students called, “What Is Your Life’s Blueprint?”
“What he says is a message I want to say to you today,” Perrotti said. “You are somebody. Right now you are deciding what you want your life to be about. And you are here for a reason: To make the world a better place. And I can’t wait to see what’s next for you.”
One group of students went to Suffolk Downs to complete several service projects. While sitting in a room overlooking the former thoroughbred horse racing track, the students assembled care packages for teenagers being treated for mental illness, made scarves for veterans, and prepared hygiene kits for mothers.
Tracey Ngabaiya, 14, of Agawam, said she participates in a community service organization at her school called “The Kindness Club.”
“I’m getting joy knowing what I’m doing right now is helping people,” she said.
She said Healey’s advice about kindness resonated with her.
“Kindness goes a long way,” Ngabaiya said. “You just don’t know much it can change somebody’s day.”
Aidan Octavius, 13, of Millbury, said he was honored to be selected for the program and was inspired by Yadav’s remarks at Faneuil Hall.
“She was fearless,” Octavius said.
Sarah Naz, 14, of Revere, said Yadaz’s words of advice, “You are enough,” were powerful.
“Everyone underestimates themselves and so sometimes people need to tell themselves that they’re enough,” said Naz. “They can be themselves. They don’t need to be someone else to make a change.”