With the city going through the largest municipal bankruptcy in the country's history, DeShawn Singleton said it lifted his spirits today to see Detroiters out helping with its slow revival. Singleton, a 22-year-old sociology senior at Wayne State University, was among about 150 college students, residents and volunteers who went door-to-door at various abandoned homes along Hoover near Osborn High School cleaning up debris, trimming bushes and covering doors and windows with plywood. The goal was to make the street - where many children walk to school - less hazardous for the foot commutes. It was the second of three days of the AmeriCorps Urban Safety Project's Day of Service initiative, which organizers say honors Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s legacy of service. "We're doing this in his name and what he stood for - standing up and making a change, and not being OK with what's going on," said project organizer Zach Fairchild of AmeriCorps' Urban Safety Project in the Center for Urban Studies at Wayne State University. Khatja McKay, a psychology student at Wayne State, said she was inspired by the residents out helping, especially the younger ones, some just 9 or 10 years old.

http://www.freep.com/article/20140119/NEWS/301190123/martin-luther-king-jr-day-of-service-detroit
http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140120/METRO01/301200024#ixzz2r2SmnI8f