Happy New Year, and welcome back to school! We have hit the ground running with a very busy January, filled with conferences, presentations on dental hygiene, field trips to Jumpers and the opening of our Spring By My Side session. 

January is also where we teach the children about the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. With peace as the cornerstone of the Quaker philosophy, it can come as no surprise that we talk about Dr. King's role in our nation's civil rights movement. We teach the children that skin color does not define a person's rights and abilities, that friends celebrate differences and that Dr. King worked tirelessly to spread this message of equality using nonviolent methods.

Dr. King had great support from Friends during the 1950s and '60s. Members of the Philadelphia-based American Friends Service Committee sent three Quakers to meet with Dr. King and support his efforts following the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. A few years later, the AFSC arranged a pilgrimage for Dr. King and his wife, Coretta Scott-King, to India in honor of Mahatma Gandhi. Perhaps most famously to those of us living in this area, local Quaker Bayard Rustin was a chief organizer of the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, where Dr. King delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech at the Lincoln Memorial.

So it is fitting that we at Goshen honor Dr. King this month, through conversations about his work, through a service project on January 21, and at our next All-School Gathering, which will be held Thursday, January 10, at 10:30 a.m. in the Meetinghouse. The Bumblebees will perform the song, "Peace Like a River," and we'll discuss what Dr. King and his legacy of peace and love mean to us. All are welcome. We hope you'll join us!

Have a great week!

In Friendship,

Tr. Mimi