Five Hills royalty honor MLK with weekend of service
Special to Leader-Press
From painting and scrubbing to picking up trash to marching to show support for our local communities, the Copperas Cove Five Hills royalty dedicated a weekend of service, not just a day, in honor of the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. MLK Day is the only federal holiday designated as a national day of service to encourage all Americans to volunteer to improve their communities.
Senior Ms. Five Hills Dawn Hale serves her community through her pageant title year-round as well as serving outside the pageant on multiple boards including the Copperas Cove Animal Shelter Advisory Committee and Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful. Hale was a site coordinator for KCCB’s MLK Day of Service Roadside Clean-Up on Saturday in which the royalty cleaned the fields by the local movie theater.
“I find it very important to volunteer in my community whenever I can,” Hale said. “By volunteering in your community, it gives you a sense of pride and ownership of the great things our city accomplishes,” Hale said. “We together can do so much. Just giving your time to a project is a priceless act that goes a long way.”
Miniature Mister Five Hills Maddox Tobias started the restoration of the community’s Free Little Libraries on Friday and with the help of his fellow titleholders, completed the project on Monday. Students returned to school on Tuesday with Free Little Libraries that look brand new.
“I am so proud of how they look and hope everybody will be excited to use them,” Tobias said. “I love our community and I love reading. So, this (volunteer) project was my favorite. I think it is going to be cool to see them around and know that I did them.”
After an already busy weekend, the Copperas Cove Five Hills royalty showed their support for volunteerism by participating in the Killeen Martin Luther King, Jr. March after the Copperas Cove event was cancelled.
Copperas Cove Five Hills Junior Ambassador Hayley Sawyer has accumulated more than 1,500 hours of volunteer service in the last 18 months.
“Volunteering at the events this weekend when we reflect on the message and life of Martin Luther King really hits home with me because I also feel in my heart that working together, we can accomplish so much,” Sawyer said. “In the spirit of following Mr. King’s inspiration, we worked together with Keep Copperas Cove Beautiful making a huge difference in our own community by cleaning up our roadsides. Working on the Free Little Libraries was rewarding because all children need access to books to read. And, we finished the weekend of service by publicly marching to show our support and demonstrate that every person can make a difference in his community.”