TOLEDO, Ohio — For more than 50 years, the Martin Luther King Kitchen for the Poor in south Toledo offered free meals to the community. But the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the operation for two years.
Now, the kitchen is back open. And for Martin Luther King Jr. Day, over 100 people gathered in the Lo Salem Baptist Church, which is connected to the Kitchen for the Poor, to remember and celebrate what King marched for.
"We want to have a rainbow again. We want to have whites, blacks, browns, all of us coming together to enjoy each other and to really bring our country back together," Harvey Savage Jr., the executive director of the Kitchen for the Poor, said.
The kitchen began feeding the community, and began its Martin Luther King Jr. Day march, in 1969.
The kitchen's doors finally reopened on a rather appropriate day.
"We are starting back and I don't think we'll ever shut down again," Savage Jr. said. "It's just a wonderful thing to keep it going and the legacy continues."
John Savage Sr., a pastor of the Lo Salem Baptist Church, said the holiday is about remembering history.
"We are here to celebrate Dr. King's birthday and his legacy, but we are also here to think about our ancestors, where they were at when they first came to this country and where we are at today," he said.
The march's message: show your neighbor the love your ancestors gave you, we too can change the world, just like King did.
"We are all standing on someone else's shoulders," Savage Sr. said. "Doors were open for me that my ancestors didn't have, but they fought for me."
After the community marched around Savage Park, they served dinner and celebrated King's birthday together. The kitchen plans to continue sharing King's message for years to come.
The Martin Luther King Kitchen for the Poor serves food Monday through Thursday from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at 650 Vance St. in central Toledo.