On Jan. 16, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Pascack Valley Regional High School District hosted its first “Beloved Community Day.”

This volunteer day is the district’s first school-wide volunteer event in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. 

Students and staff had the opportunity to take part in activities such as helping the Hillsdale Ambulance Corp., sewing teddy bears for children in need, and working with Pascack Hills’s TAC (Teens Against Cancer) group to make fleece blankets for the Zack Latteri Foundation’s “Zack Packs.”

According to Erica Franceski, Student Family Resources Liaison for Guidance and Counseling, there were about 300 students and staff members volunteering. Franceski and Dr. Mark Russo— who is the Supervisor of Math and Computer Science & Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion— worked together to create the volunteer day.

“We try to implement things that are going to make our school more inclusive,” Franceski said. “So, you know, certainly the celebration of Dr. King and a beloved community fits right in with those inclusivity goals. So, that’s kind of how it was born out of the district equity work.”

From there, “The Student Climate Team at [Pascack] Hills helped come up with a logo for the t-shirt for the day,” Franceski said. 

Pascack Valley High School principal John Puccio said the idea for the day started “…in hopes that we could give back service to our community.”

According to Puccio, Martin Luther King Jr. did a great deal of work for his community, so this volunteer day is a way to honor him.

“Our goal was to honor Dr. King’s vision for the beloved community by engaging in service of collaborating and relationship building with faculty, staff, students and members of our community,” Franceski said. “… also, to reflect on the district’s equity and inclusion, creativity goals and wellness goals.”

This volunteer day is only the first one, but Franceski and Puccio hope that the “Beloved Volunteer Day” will be an annual event and tradition. 

“We would love for it to become a new Pascack tradition, where it can become a day of service for everyone. And we’d like to keep expanding it,” Franceski said.

Franceski thinks that having community members bond outside of a classroom setting will be very beneficial in connecting people of the PVRHSD community.

“One of Dr. King’s visions of a beloved community is that,” Franceski said. “I really love the idea of faculty, staff, and community members coming together in an expression of love.”