MIDLAND, Pa. — The Midland Women’s Civic Club (MWCC) is again celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and commemorating the 2025 holiday with both familiar ways and new and unique events both locally and across the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

In conjunction with its educational partners, the annual MWCC’s MLK Day Writing Awards are once again underway. Middle and high school students from the Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School, Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School, Midland Elementary and Middle School, Baden Academy Charter School, and Midland Innovation + Technology Charter School have been invited to join this competition. Entrants can submit either poems or prose related to a quote from Dr. King that serves as the theme of this year’s Midland MLK Day Celebration: “Everybody can be great — because anybody can serve.” Winners will be announced later in the spring at a special new community-wide MLK event that is still in the planning stages.

Additionally, all of the schools will be conducting in-person service projects in the weeks surrounding the holiday. Locally, students from Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School’s Jazz Quartet, under the direction of Grammy Award-winner Eric DeFade, will travel to Celebration Villa in Chippewa to entertain residents with a special program of jazz standards. Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center will conduct a campaign with Tickets For Kids that will welcome young people and their families into productions at its theaters.

Stephanie G. Pennington, Chair of the program, said, “this is both the most wide-ranging and far-reaching effort we have had for our annual MLK Day commemoration to date. The Midland Women’s Civic Club is indebted to the students, their families, teachers and administrators of these superb educational entities for their caring, their volunteerism, and their love for others. These community projects, along with their fund raising efforts through the years, have helped to keep alive the dream of Dr. King.

The MWCC has raised thousands of dollars in scholarships that help fund the education of college-bound students from the area thanks to the dedication of everyone involved. She added, “the quote from Dr. King, used in this year’s MLK Day theme, serves as a perfectly fitting example.”