Photos: Martin Luther King Jr. Day in Anchorage

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Volunteers shovel walkways on East 6th Avenue Monday morning. The NAACP Youth Council and the Sierra Club organized a volunteer effort that attracted about 15 people to Mountain View on Martin Luther King Day, January 18, 2016. Laura Comer, of Sierra Club, said she hopes the effort will make the neighborhood more walkable, especially for those that rely on public transportation. “Martin Luther King Day is a day of service, and we’re promoting just that,” said Besse Odom, vice president of the NAACP Youth Council. “We’re trying to make the roads safer, making it easier for people to get out and do what they have to do. We’re showing service to the most diverse community in Anchorage, and we plan to continue doing this.”

Anchorage honors Martin Luther King Jr. with service projects and commemorations on Monday, Jan. 18, 2016.

Pacific Northern Academy held classes Monday and presented a program that featured a choral reading performance of "The Rosa Parks Story," a presentation from a visit 6th graders made to the King Memorial in Washington, D.C., last spring, musical performances, and a video of Dr. King's 1963 "I Have a Dream" speech. Later in the morning students spent an hour working on thank-you projects for police officers, fire fighters, sanitation workers, postal workers, senior citizen caregivers and workers at the Food Bank of Alaska, Bean's Cafe, Animal Care and Control and the Alaska Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.

Around town, volunteers assembled food boxes for distribution to poor elderly people at the Food Bank of Alaska, cleared sidewalks in Mountain View, underwent training for homeless camp outreach, assembled hygiene kits and performed other services.

Free legal clinics were offered in Anchorage, Fairbanks and Juneau as a public service project of the Alaska Bar Association, Alaska Court System, Alaska Legal Services Corporation, and Alaska Public Media in partnership with local bar associations.