MLK Prayer Breakfast to honor Library System

ZANESVILLE, Ohio- An annual tradition for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day will be back this year and will honor our local library system.

The 24th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Prayer Breakfast is a celebration put on by the Martin Luther King, Jr. Scholarship Fund Committee. Each year the committee gives scholarships to high school seniors attending Muskingum County High Schools. This year 19 students are being awarded.

“The purpose was to recognize those minority students who were excelling in the classroom. Everybody needs a little bit of encouragement,” said Carlotta Workman a Committee member for the Scholarship Fund. “They need recognition for progress and success that they have. So when this program started it was to encourage minority students to excel in the classroom.”

In addition to the student award recipients, the committee also acknowledges and honors an individual, a business, or an organization in the community. This year the MLK Honoree is the Muskingum County Library System. Workman says the theme for the breakfast this year is “Fostering A Love of Reading” and the Muskingum Library System is the perfect fit.

“We know reading opens up all kinds of avenues. Reading can transport you everywhere. And plus, reading is the basis of our society. And what better place to go read than at the library? And the library has been very supportive of the Martin Luther King scholarship fund,” said Workman. “And so we thought, you know, our theme this year is ‘Fostering the Love of Reading; let’s honor the library system for all they have done, not just for the city of Zanesville, but for Muskingum County.”

Jennifer Spillman, the Executive Director of the Muskingum County Library System agreed with Workman that the Library mission statement aligns with this year’s theme.

“This is the library’s mission statement, it is: ‘We open doors for curious minds. We foster a love of reading. We encourage exploration and discovery, enable learning and inspire creativity by connecting people with information, ideas in each other’, said Spillman. “So you can see the very second part of our mission statement is fostering a love of reading and the scholarship fund gives scholarships out to college-bound – minority college-bound – students; and to pay for textbooks.”

The prayer breakfast will take place on Monday at the North Terrace Church at 9 a.m.. Tickets can be purchased at the Welcome Center for $10.