http://www.courier-journal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060116/BUSINESS/601160331

The Courier Journal
Louisville, Kentucky

PHOTO CAPTION: The Rev. Peter Smith of Service for Peace said its biggest project in Kentucky is the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Season of Service. (By Mary Ann Gerth, The Courier-Journal)

Snapshots of People at Work

*re: *Peter Hayes, service director Service for Peace chief led planning for Martin Luther King Jr. Day projects

*Name:* The Rev. Peter Hayes

*Title:* State director, Service for Peace, 4124 Falcon Drive. Contact: (502) 290-3611; Louisville@serviceforpeace.org; or www.serviceforpeace.org.

*Age:* 46.

*Education: *Practical theology degree, International Bible Institute and Seminary in Toledo, Ohio.

*Family: *Married, two children.

*Peaceful alternative: *Service for Peace is "a service learning organization. We have a global perspective of peace and work on grassroots efforts to break down racial and religious barriers and communicate community service as a peacemaking tool."

*Meeting needs: *"We also worked in Thailand after the tsunami. We have a pretty strong chapter there. When Katrina hit, some of them were moved. ... Some of those volunteers from Thailand are coming to the Mississippi area."

*Day of service: *"In Kentucky, our biggest project is the annual Martin Luther King Jr. Season of Service," which begins today with volunteer work from 9 a.m. to noon at Jefferson County locations.

*Overseer: *"As chairman, I chair our planning committee and see that everything gets done. We have three committees that make up our planning committee. The committees are finance; project registration and volunteer recruitment; and public relations, marketing and event planning."

*Serving others: *"What we do on Martin Luther King Day of Service is we will have close to 30 to 50 different community-service projects lined up. We bring in volunteers from corporations, churches and other organizations that want to participate and honor MLK in the community to paint, clean, sort and do other things like that."

*Partnerships: *"We have partners such as GE, Ford, State Farm and many others on the planning committee who help with (volunteers) and resources. Wal-Mart is our title sponsor for this year's event. They have 200 to 300 people from their stores in this district volunteering. Wal-Mart is at Wayside Christian mission this year. Home Depot has close to 100 volunteers painting at the Shawnee Community Center. They are also providing the funding for their project."

*Modeled idea: *"It's the biggest event in this community for a single service project. Philadelphia pioneered the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Service. They have 45,000 people working on over 600 community-service projects. We are modeling ourselves after that."

*Back to school: *"In August, we have a back-to-school backpack giveaway. To see kids get a backpack and skip back to their chairs is exciting. We get the backpacks through fund raising, and we partner with Office Depot."

*Summer project: *"In the summer, we have various summer service projects throughout the community. It's the same type of work. We clean up with the Parks Department."

*Coming together: *"On June 21, we had Wal-Mart Day of Service, which is unique because we pulled the marketing district together and they had never done that before. We had 250 volunteers come out, and we worked on Shawnee Park. We mulched a couple hundred trees and did some cleanup. Metro Parks said this is the biggest event (done) in a few years."

*Donor campaign: *"We also have a donor campaign. It's for individuals who want to support the work" of the organization. "We are kicking it off now," starting today.

*Helping others: *"I really like to be able to help individuals and families ... that is the best thing" about the job.

*Downsides: *Hayes said he doesn't like "having to raise the money and not having the resources to help the amount of people we would like. We gave out 300 backpacks with supplies, but we had a request for 2,000, and it's not fun turning down kids."

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