Got Cans? Donate Them to the MLK Day Luminary Project in South Orange-Maplewood

From the South Orange/Maplewood Community Coalition on Race and the Meadowland Park Conservancy:

If you’ve passed Flood’s Hill and the duck pond at Meadowland Park on Martin Luther King Day in recent years, you’ve seen the hundreds of beautiful luminaries that volunteers from the Community Coalition on Race and the Meadowland Park Conservancy (MPC) have lit there in honor of Dr. King’s message of hope and peace.

But did you know that the luminaries contain a hidden second purpose? Each one is weighed down by a can of food that will later be donated to a local food pantry.

This year, for the third year in a row, the Coalition and the MPC will partner to display luminaries around the duck pond and on Flood’s Hill in the evening on Martin Luther King Day (January 16th).

For the third year running, the two groups will also be collecting cans of food to use to weigh down the luminaries in the park. At the end of the night, the cans will be collected and donated to local food pantries.

Last year, 317 cans of food were collected as part of this effort, and this year, organizers are hoping to collect even more.

If you would like to donate cans to the effort, you can drop them off at any of the following addresses by January 16: