It looks like Barack Obama’s national community service day was a big hit. Reports of thousands of volunteers are appearing in newspaper pages from New York to Philadelphia to San Francisco. Did you participate in your own community? Let us know in the comments.

San Francisco Chronicle:

With paint rollers, scrub brushes, work gloves and rakes, thousands of Bay Area residents pitched in, side by side with neighbors and strangers, to help improve their communities: cleaning up beaches, painting homeless shelters, weeding parks and reaching out to homeowners at risk of foreclosure.

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New York Daily News:

It was a holiday — but not a day off — for some big-hearted New Yorkers Monday.

Legions of volunteers throughout the five boroughs took up Barack Obama’s call to use Martin Luther King Day as a day of service.

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Philadelphia Inquirer:

One day before Barack Obama’s inauguration as the nation’s first African American president, a record 65,000 volunteers across the region wielded hammers, grocery bags, sewing needles and paint brushes in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s vision of opportunity and world peace.

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