Fifty high school and junior high students from the Pine Bluff and Watson Chapel districts and Friendship Aspire Academy will gather Tuesday at the Donald W. Reynolds Community Services Center, 211 W. Third Ave., to kick off the 40th annual Original KingFest Martin Luther King Day Celebration.
The kickoff begins at noon. Dr. Carla M. Martin, vice chancellor of finance and administration at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff, will be the guest speaker. The public is invited, but seating is limited.
The United Way of Southeast Arkansas joins the Original KingFest to promote January as National Mentoring Month, according to a news release. Pine Bluff Interested Citizens for Voter Registration, a United Way partner agency, will host the students for the kickoff.
“Mentoring suggested that positive youth development is critical for youths, particularly African American youths, in negotiating a social, political and historical landscape grounded in systemic inequities and racism,” PBICVR President D. Lance Newby said in the news release. “For generations, informal, now more formal mentoring has played a powerful role in providing young people with the motivation and tools to strive and thrive, to attend and engage in school and to reduce or avoid risky behavior.”
For more information on the kickoff, contact PBICVR at (870) 730-1131.