Well, the countdown to the 42nd annual Martin Luther King parade is on and it is one of the largest cultural celebrations to take place along Harbor Drive in San Diego. Join us live UC San Diego Campus Diversity Officer John Rollins the third alongside two U CS D students, Malachi
Galbraith and Michael Styles to talk about the Sears parade. Good morning to all three of you, gentlemen, you are joining us today. Uh A lot of excitement building, of course, ahead of this. But also I imagine that this has been a lot of planning over the course of the last 12 months.
Yes, absolutely. A lot of hard work. A lot of effort put in by not only the brotherhood but a lot of partners that work alongside of us. So we’re really excited about what folks will experience this year for people who are hearing it for the first time.
Maybe don’t have any plans uh for Sunday, right? Tell us what people can expect as they come out. Malachi. Yeah. So basically, it’s just, we’re just gonna have a parade. So it’s gonna be a lot of floats coming out. Um If anybody has seen the Rose Bowl parade.
It’s gonna be something like that, but it’s gonna be in order to celebrate our brother, Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. So he crossed Sigmund chapter at Boston University Spring 1952. We’re also gonna be having a five K. Um The theme for the event is gonna be health. So not only just mental health,
Physical health and just the health of the community overall, we’re hosting the event and the five K just to get everybody to come together and make sure we have their celebration in order of our brother and that five K is unique to this year, right? That you guys are trying first time.
Uh Do people have to register in advance for that? They can visit San Diego office.com to get more information and to register there? But we also just invite folks to come out and be a part of the festive. I mean, waterfront is the best place to be in.
Uh What’s it been like with the planning process, Michael? Uh The planning process has been like you said, it’s been um I would say a lot but it’s actually gonna be worth it to like come out there and see it.
It’s gonna be a pretty cool event we’re planning like they said the parade and the five K. So just like coming out there and see that’s gonna be something that you wanna do. There’s a competition related to the floats, right? Uh U CS D did win last year.
We did, you know, you got, you know, a reputation to upkeep this year. But tell us, I mean, do you guys have different judges for the floats? Right. So, how does that work? Yeah. So we have a lot of um, organizations and community members that will be coming and being apart.
Um So we’re excited to see the creativity that they put into uh the floats again this year, our focus on the healthy community thrives together. So I think some of the floats will hopefully lean into that. Um And we’re excited to see what folks are coming up with and
Really their excitement around this event and representing their specific organizations and institutions. Uh as a campus diversity officer, I imagine obviously, your job spans not just this event, but a lot more you cover a lot of ground. So tell us about, you know, especially that health, that mental health,
Physical health uh process of, of talking with students on campus. Absolutely. I mean, if you think about it, mental health is a very important factor in making sure that our students are successful because how can they be their best if they’re always kind of stressed out?
So we have a lot of different services um and things that we promote to make sure our students are safe in our, in our center. Specifically, we a discussion um every other week called Black Connections, really allowing them to come together in community and talk about the things that they’re
Dealing with as well as leaning on our professionals on campus to make things happen. Uh What’s the experience been like in the fraternity for you too? Um It’s really been a great experience um especially attending a PW I, it has been a lack of African American community on campus. So finding that brotherhood
Just being able to come together, make the community together better as a whole has been a great experience for me and like, like that, like he said, it’s been a great experience. And as for me growing up as an only child, having like that sense of brotherhood with like
All of my line has been something that’s really been impactful for me and like, I’ll take the memories I made with them and like, keep them for the rest of my life. Well, you guys are planning an awesome event, uh
Should come out and join you. Remind everyone at home where they can go for more info. Yes, San Diego alphas.com. You can get all the information there about the five K about the parade as well as our festival will be happening afterwards. Beautiful weekend, too.
Awesome time to get out to the waterfront. A quick break in store. We’re back after this. Stay with us here on CBS eight.
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