Erinn Finley
Staff Writer
[email protected]

Murray State’s Office of Multicultural Initiatives (OMI) held their annual Martin Luther King Junior Day of Service challenge on Jan. 17.

S.G. Carthell, the executive director of Multicultural Initiatives, Student Leadership & Inclusive Excellence, said OMI has historically hosted activities on the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day that included a community service project.

“Typically, people would bring items to support our local agencies to replenish the supplies they provide over the holiday season,” Carthell said. “There’s usually a more significant need for resources and support in the community during that time. Due to the recent tragic tornadoes and severe weather that we have had in the area, we wanted to provide people with an opportunity to give to those efforts.”

Carthell said this year they were collecting donations for CASA by the Lakes, Need Line, the Merryman House, HOPE Calloway, Lotus, United Way of Murray-Calloway County and the Team Kentucky Relief Fund.

Last year, OMI could not have activities in person because of COVID-19 restrictions, limiting them from participating in the community service portion of the day. They had a completely virtual program, and Carthell said it was well received.

Senior Mckenna Barken has worked at OMI since she was a freshman. She is part of the Branding and Marketing Team that creates social media for the Office.

Barken said this year’s challenge differed from last year’s because this year the Office had a service portion during the day, collected donations and held a competition between different organizations on campus to motivate others to donate.

“In 2019, we had a wonderful community service day,” Carthell said. “We had a lot of items  collected for the agencies. It was probably one of the best MLK Days of Service that we’ve had.”

We were looking forward to repeating those efforts; unfortunately, we’ve had a few setbacks due to the global pandemic.”

Carthell said OMI wanted to repeat those efforts, but have had some setbacks due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal this year was to get an equal amount of student engagement during the MLK Jr. Day of Service as the Office saw in 2019.

“We also wanted to implement the MLK Jr. Racer Challenge with incentives such as trophies and special recognition for student groups,” Carthell said. “We thought it would help encourage students to participate.”

Carthell said he wished for a higher turnout, but is still happy with the donations OMI received. Barken, too, thought the challenge went well.

“Although students were moving back onto campus on MLK Day, we still received donations, and for that we are grateful,” Barken said.

OMI is no longer accepting donations for this challenge.

However, Carthell said they are still encouraging people to seek out the various agencies OMI supports and to make donations to those groups. He said people can also donate to the United Way of Murray Calloway County’s community fund and support the Team Kentucky Relief Fund efforts.

Barken said students should follow the Office’s Instagram page, @msu_omi, to catch any future events happening this semester.

“If there is anything any student would like to see done this semester through OMI, please give us a call or send us an email, and we’ll do our best to make it happen,” Barken said.