Make a lasting impact on the city of Boston by contributing to the 2018 Convention service project, “Rise Up in the Public Service.”
Starting on Wednesday, July 18, we’ll be packing I AM 2018-inspired backpacks for Boston’s underserved schools and school children. And we need your help.
AFSCME is working with Council 93 and the Heart of America Foundation, Inc. to outfit Boston-area kids with the tools they need for success. Our goal is to fill 5,000 backpacks.
Pencils, erasers, folders, a composition book and I AM history bookmarks (featuring inspirational quotes from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.) will bring a smile to children’s faces and will make their school day brighter.
And, as a special gift for students, we’ll include copies of “Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968,” a children’s book by author and Memphis public school teacher Alice Faye Duncan (illustrated by R. Gregory Christie). The powerful book imagines the strike through the eyes of a 9-year-old girl, Lorraine (Lorri) Jackson, who marches alongside her sanitation worker father and mother during the strike.
“My uncle, Walter Manning, was a sanitation worker,” said Ms. Duncan. “He joined AFSCME Local 1733 during the Memphis Sanitation Strike of 1968. Union membership is my family heritage, and I am honored to have AFSCME share my book with young readers in Boston.”
So, get your packing muscles ready, and meet us Wednesday in Hall B!