MELISSA BLOCK, host:
And for others looking for opportunities to pay back, well, there were plenty today. It is, of course, Martin Luther King Day. It's also a congressionally designated National Day of Service.
Here in Washington, the first family joined volunteers who were painting at Stuart Hobson Middle School. President Obama also offered a few words.
President BARACK OBAMA: Doctor King obviously had a dream of justice and equality in our society, but he also had a dream of service, that you could be a drum major for service. You could lead by giving back.
BLOCK: We checked in with volunteers in several other places around the country today. First, to South Portland, Maine.
Ms. ALEXA PLOTKIN: I believe it is 14 degrees out today.
BLOCK: And so Alexa Plotkin is with a group of AmeriCorps alumni helping to weatherize homes. The hardest job so far? Installing window plastic.
Ms. PLOTKIN: It's quite a cumbersome process to get that on. It's a very fine art to get basically Saran Wrap onto windows.
BLOCK: In Little Rock, Arkansas, Chiante Fletcher(ph) is organizing a group of kids at the Helping Hands Thrift Store.
Ms. CHIANTE FLETCHER: So they're hanging up clothing. They're going through diapers and baby clothes, and they're organizing that. They're cleaning.
BLOCK: Not things kids normally like doing, but today, says Fletcher, is no normal day.
Ms. FLETCHER: They're in high spirits, and they're laughing, and they're clowning. They're having a good time. And the kids come back year after year.
BLOCK: Finally to Redlands, California. Chris Becktel of the group Music Changing Lives is unveiling a mural today that he painted with the help of students.
Mr. CHRIS BECKTEL: Starts off with Martin Luther King, and it goes through Cesar Chavez, and we've got the Lincoln Memorial up.
BLOCK: They'll dedicate the mural by playing a recording of Dr King's most famous speech, delivered at the Lincoln Memorial nearly half a century ago.
Dr. MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: When we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: free at last, free at last, thank God almighty we are free at last.