Pandemic forces organizers to get creative in honoring work of Dr. King

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — Celebrations across our country Monday honored the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

While many may not have had to work because of the federal holiday, it is a National Day of Service for thousands volunteering to improve communities.

This year, so many celebrations have been moved online or being held in a small capacity because of the coronavirus pandemic.

COVID-19 forced the cancellation of several traditional MLK Day celebrations, like Charlotte’s annual parade. So some local community leaders and chefs came up with another idea -- soup.

For a donation, people sampled soups from 15 different chefs in Charlotte. The gathering was about a lot more than soup.

“I won’t get into how divided we are, but this is a great way to bring us together,” Charlotte resident Jeff Barnhart said.

It was a chance for many in the community to come together and share a meal and a common purpose, which was to remember Dr. King and his message to reach out to the neediest in the Charlotte community.

“We need some healing really, really bad -- really, really quickly,” Charlotte resident Nicole Jarrett said.

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The soup kitchen was sponsored by Heal Charlotte and brought the community together at a time when it perhaps is needed most.

Gregory Collier is the chef and owner at Leah and Louise, one of the restaurants behind the event.

“If everybody cooked a bowl of soup for somebody they didn’t know, we’d be in a better place,” Collier said.

Collier said while we don’t have all the answers right now, we are starting to have the necessary conversations.

“I don’t have all the answers now,” Collier said. “I got a lot of questions. There’s a lot of work to be done. I think one of the things we’ve had this year is we’re starting to have the conversations that are 50 years behind, but at least we’re having a conversation now.”