Coloradans celebrate by offering helping hands to causes

Sarah Mahoney, 54, drove from Englewood to Manual High School to take advantage of free medical services at the MLK Day Health Fair, sponsored by Kaiser Permanente. She signed up to get a cholesterol screening and a mammogram.

Mahoney moved to Colorado in September from San Francisco when her fiance got a job here. She hasn't been able to find a job in her field as a real estate paralegal and has been without medical insurance since 2004.

At about 11 a.m., Mahoney sat in a waiting room filled with women signed up to get pap smears, screenings for common sexually transmitted diseases, pelvic exams and mammograms.

For Mahoney, getting help on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday adds meaning.

"He talked about freedom.

This whole clinic is free. It feels freeing to get this done today and not pay anything. It's going to give me peace of mind . . . to hopefully know that everything's going to be OK."

Larry Hunter did a 25-mile bike ride, then headed for the Bonfils Blood Center at Lowry.

"I'm almost chagrined to say it, but even for an Obama follower like me, it was like I needed a kick in the behind to do this," said Hunter, a professor at the University of Colorado School of Medicine.

Hunter said he had gotten out of the habit of donating blood, and the National Call to Service Day was the kick he needed.

"I have this little sliver of hope that things could turn around here," Hunter said. "It's been a very dark time in America, and we are facing more darkness but I do have this sliver of hope that if we do this stuff - people trying to do something for each other - we can make it good again."

Jeanette Carmany recalls the injustices of the segregated South she witnessed as a young teacher in Birmingham, Ala.

Forty years ago, she worked alongside the mother of one of the four young black girls killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963.

"I've seen a lot in my lifetime," said Carmany, a member of the Aurora School Board.

Carmany said she felt a renewed sense of hope on the eve of Barack Obama's swearing in as the nation's first black president. "I worked with the mother of civil rights activist Angela Davis. I worked with the mother of one of the girls killed in the church bombing.

Obama's presidency gives me hope that this country can heal and become proud of who we are as Americans."

Carmany demonstrated her commitment to Obama's call to action by volunteering to box food at the Food Bank of the Rockies.

It was her first time volunteering for the organization, and she said it won't be her last, hoping the National Day of Service becomes commonplace.

"If you look around, you see old, young, middle-age, black, white and Latinos working side by side to help others.

It's a cross section of the country here today, and that's the way it should be."

Kathleen Gomendi said she can have anywhere from four to 20 volunteers on any given day serving food to the homeless at the Grant Avenue Street Reach facility at St. Paul's Lutheran Church.

She had close to 50 on Monday - in large part due to President-elect Barack Obama's call to service on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

"It's great," she said. "It's uplifting for all of us."

Hill Harris, an Obama volunteer during the campaign, was busy filling aluminum trays with nuts and raisins to make trail mix bags.

The Denver Health Medical Center doctor said Obama's grassroots campaign and extensive volunteer network have made participating in service projects a lot easier.

"It's easy to give a speech and to say you should help those in need," he said.

"But if you're not organized, then it makes it harder to make it happen on a large scale."

Tom Curdts parked his bike at Westerly Creek, near the Stapleton development, and merrily dispatched his kids - Sadie, 6, and Sierra, 8 - into the underbrush to start picking up trash.

"We do this periodically," said the 52-year-old Park Service employee. "Plus - this time Michelle called us to a day of service."

Michelle Obama was the magic name Monday, though the Curdts family, including wife and mom, Ivy Sigel, believes in volunteering and being vigilant about the environment anyway.

"It's important to care for the Earth," Curdts said.

It wasn't lost on the veteran volunteer that Martin Luther King Jr. Day has become, in recent years, the clarion call to service.

"It's such a big deal," Curdts said. "I wish (King) could be here to see it."

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