Santa Rosa church celebrates MLK Day with service acts

Rubin Scott grew up about four blocks from Santa Rosa’s Martin Luther King Jr. Park, playing basketball on its courts as a young boy - the same courts he plays on now as a man, with his son.

On Monday, he was at the park with a few dozen others helping clean it up as part of an annual commitment to have “a day on, not a day off” in celebration of the federal holiday marking Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.

“It’s supposed to be a lazy day,” Scott said. “This is one of the ways to counteract that, by saying that on a day off, when we could be being lazy, we’re trying to be proactive and help the people of our community build.”

Scott, 40, was there as a member of Santa Rosa’s Community Baptist Church, where he’s been a member since the age of 12.

A community organizer, Scott works with the church to organize service days and serves on the committee that hosts its Juneteenth celebration, which commemorates the abolition of slavery in America.

The January cleanup day serves not just as a way to give back to the community he grew up in, but also as a way to ready the park for its busy summer schedule, including the Juneteenth party hosted by Community Baptist Church, and where he and his 19-year-old son play annually in a basketball tournament.

For nine years, Scott has participated in MLK Day service efforts, and every year he meets new people of different racial backgrounds and of different socioeconomic backgrounds coming together to do things that matter.

“There’s something that happens when people work together,” said the Rev. Lee Turner, pastor of Community Baptist Church, which has been promoting “A Day On, Not a Day Off” events for about two decades. “There’s something that happens when they have to talk to each other, to do things together. They realize they are alike. It’s the diversity that Dr. Rev. King talked about that we’re experiencing. It’s all of that and more.”

The effort is more important now, following October’s devastating wildfires and a year rife with political tensions, said Sonoma County Supervisor Shirlee Zane, who spoke as part of the church’s ceremony Monday afternoon.

“This community is grieving,” she said. “People have experienced horrific trauma. Coming together with works of love and compassion - works, not just words - is so important right now. If we’re going to heal as a community, those works need to be every day, and speaking up with words denouncing the rhetoric needs to be every day as well.”

You can reach Staff Writer Christi Warren at 707-521-5205 or christi.warren@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @SeaWarren.