MLK Activities Update: New January 20 ‘Day of Service’ Website Announced; The MLK Parade will roll on a Saturday in 2025

For 2025, Martin Luther King Jr. The Holiday Organization Committee of the Bulloch County NAACP scheduled to hold the King Holiday Celebration Parade at 1 p.m. Saturday, January 18, making MLK Day itself, Monday, January 20, a “Day of Service.”

But first, local events for the national holiday will begin this Saturday, Jan. 11, with the annual youth-led NAACP Prayer Breakfast at 7 p.m. 9 at the Williams Center, 74 Georgia Ave. on the Georgia Southern campus.

School-age members of the Bulloch County NAACP Youth Council work with adult volunteers to host the breakfast, also sponsored by the NAACP Georgia Southern University Chapter. The Xi Tau Chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity at Georgia Southern will also pay tribute as part of this year’s breakfast, said Adrianne McCollar, co-advisor for the Bulloch NAACP Youth Council. Dr. King was one of several prominent civil rights leaders who have been Alpha Phi Alpha members.

The keynote speaker at the breakfast will be Chelsea Weaver, the Statesboro-based licensed professional counselor who operates Bloom House Therapy and Wellness. For music during the 2025 Prayer Breakfast, the Georgia Southern University Gospel Choir is scheduled to perform.

People who wish to attend are asked to donate $25 each for the breakfast, as the event serves as the Youth Council’s annual fundraiser.

MLK Service

Then an MLK Celebration Church Service is planned for Sunday, Jan. 12, at Elm Street Church of God, 29 Elm St., Statesboro.

The theme for the overall celebration in 2025 is “Dream with Hope; Believe in Community; Lead with Purpose.”

In several previous years, Elm Street Church hosted the community service after the parade. This Sunday’s program will be the same as in previous years, only earlier in January and not after the parade, explained Yevette McCall, president of the Bulloch County Branch of the NAACP.

“It’s still for the community. It’s the exact same service; it’s just not after the parade; it’s the week before,” she said.

January 18 Parade

& ‘Conversations’

This year, as noted, the parade will be held on a separate day, Saturday, January 18th, rolling through downtown Statesboro beginning at

“We just decided to do things a little differently to see if we can get more people involved, be more impactful,” McCall said. “We’ll try it and see what happens, but all in all, we know it’s going to be a great weekend, this weekend and next.”

The entry fee for groups or organizations to ride or march in the parade is $30, but of course it’s free to watch. Applications for parade entries are available at Craig Tremble Funeral Home and Hill’s Mortuary or through a link on the Bulloch County NAACP Facebook page. Check-in time for parade units next Saturday is 11.00, and everyone must be in place before 12.30 p.m

A “Community Conversations” program is scheduled to be held immediately following the parade, not at a church, but at Statesboro City Hall, also known as the historic Jaeckel Hotel, 50 East Main St.

“It’s going to be an event where we really want to talk about MLK’s life and legacy and then some of the things that the community would like to see the NAACP have conversations about or organize our meetings around,” McCall said.

A food truck will be located near City Hall during this event.

Service day

So Monday, January 20th will be the day of service, with activities scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. on behalf of Restoring the Breach at 515 Denmark St., Suite 2500. Note: this is an update and change from an earlier version of this story, which reflected the NAACP’s earlier intent, shown in online MLK commemoration flyers, to hold the Day of Service activities at the Statesboro Food Bank. But scheduling the day worked better for volunteers to serve at Restoring the Breach and not the Food Bank, McCall said.

Restoring the Breach Inc. is a Statesboro-based nonprofit that hosts guidance services for youth and workshops for adults on topics such as family budgeting and career readiness, as well as other social services programs.

McCollar, also a member of the Organizing Committee for MLK weekend, commented on why this year’s events are being spread over 10 days.

“We made two main changes,” she said. “One … we wanted to spread things out because we felt it was getting a bit long to try to cram everything into Monday, so we wanted to give members of the community more opportunities to come and participate in some event by spreading things out, but we wanted everything to be coordinated.

“And so we wanted to emphasize the day of service on Monday,” she said.

McCall and McCollar credited organizing committee chairman Dorsey Baldwin for leadership in planning the MLK events.