Adults should have the same opportunities as kids when it comes to criminal justice. That’s according to the Rev. Melissa Stump, who spoke Tuesday night at the 21st annual rally of PEACE, a coalition of Polk churches who unite around social action. More
Nearly 40 mobile homes and cottages at Lake Parker Avenue and Lemon Street are being repaired by volunteers and turned into housing for formerly homeless people recovering from COVID-19, Fox 13 News reports. Gospel Inc. purchased the property with the help of a federal CARES Act grant. The few people already living there will be able to stay and their rent is being reduced.
A Martin Luther King Jr. Day event at The Joinery on Monday brought together faith-based organizations and focused on “critical conversation” questions, News Channel 8 reports.
RELATED: City of Lakeland debuts MLK Day video
The season of giving has given reason for hope to directors of more than two dozen local nonprofit organizations that received grants from Citizens Bank & Trust. The Polk-based bank’s philanthropic distribution was named 100 Days of Giving to help celebrate its 100th birthday this year. More
Members of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals dressed in monkey suits dumped wheelbarrows full of coconuts outside the Publix IT center on Kentucky Avenue today. They said they were protesting Publix’ business dealings with a Thai company that uses monkeys to harvest coconuts, News Channel 8 reports. Publix responded to reporters that a third-party audit found that no monkeys were used at the farms in question.
A childhood friend of the late City Commissioner Edie Yates Henderson is organizing Christmas caroling in the South Lake Morton neighborhood in memory of Henderson and her husband, David, who were murdered in their home last month, News Channel 8 reports. The carolers will sing at 5 p.m. Dec. 18 on the 800 block of Mississippi Avenue and will be raising funds for Camp Wingmann in Avon Park, a Christian camp that Yates attended as a child and that her family purchased in the late 1990s when it needed a financial rescue. | Camp Wingmann
Talbot House Ministries serves three hot meals a day to the community’s homeless, and KidsPACK sends packets of food home each Friday with underserved Polk students, Bay News 9 reports.
Lakeland-based Volunteers in Service to the Elderly re-tooled their food prep and delivery methods this year to align with pandemic protocols, and its volunteers drove 1,800 Thanksgiving meals to western Polk’s elderly, News Channel 8 reports.
Despite being around for 88 years, Temple Emanuel has modern ideas about extending Thanksgiving to a larger community. It’s all about finding gratitude in an unstable time. More
A public forum called “Lift Lakeland” drew a crowd large enough to fill 2.5 hours with 2-minute bits of input on race relations Thursday night. More
