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Students help beautify Martin Luther King Center

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By Dawn Feddersen | Saturday, April 21, 2007 | No comments posted

Austin Fierce, 10, of Maquoketa, Iowa, is precise about putting together pieces for his sculpture at the Earth Week Fair at the QCCA Expo Center in Rock Island on Saturday. The event was among several taking place this week to celebrate Earth Week, including a beautification project Saturday at the Martin Luther King Center in Rock Island. (Lauren M. Anderson/QUAD-CITY TIMES)

(Updated: 4:35 p.m.) Helen Boayue, a sixth-grader at Francis Willard Elementary in Rock Island gets a lot from the Martin Luther King Center in Rock Island.

She goes there every day after school where she gets help with her homework, use of the center’s computer, and time to play with her friends. But today, she and her friends were giving something back to the center.

Helen, about a dozen other children, and volunteers from Americorps and Big Brothers/Big Sisters helped beautify the grounds around the Martin Luther King Center in Rock Island in celebration of Earth Day.

“I come here every day so it’ll be good to see the place beautiful and looking good. I can show my friends and say, ‘Oh yeah, I planted those flowers,’ ” she said proudly.

The group filled the beautiful day with hard work on the next to the building on its south side by clearing out old mulch and weeds, tilling the soil, and putting down new mulch and flowers.

They planted red, white, and pink petunias; feather reed grasses; and knockout roses, a low-maintenance perennial that will beautify the center year after year.

Joel Newman, mentoring outreach coordinator at Big Brothers/Big Sisters, said he has been working on the event since November, securing volunteers and donations from local businesses.

“We’ve worked with the Martin Luther King Center before and it was great. We really wanted to come back. We asked Jerry, the center’s director, what we could do and he said the place could really use some landscaping,” Newman said.

Jerry Jones, director of the Martin Luther King Center, described the volunteers’ work as “phenomenal.”

“Before, this was full of weeds, not very attractive. They’ve done such a phenomenal job. It’ll really help to beautify 7th Avenue,” he said.

Jones also feels that the project is an even bigger benefit to the area because of the local children involved.

“It’s good for these kids to see that their contribution makes a difference, that they can play a role in something like this. They can come back and see things progressing and growing and feel a connection to the community knowing that they helped do that,” he said.

The city desk can be contacted at (563) 383-2450 or newsroom@qctimes.com.