Service

The President-Elect and Mrs. Obama motorcade after a stop at Calvin Coolidge H.S.
as part of the National Day of Service during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.
(Click on image to enlarge.)

Yesterday, President-elect and Mrs. Obama spent the day engaged in service projects throughout the city. Mr. Obama started his day at Walter Reed Army Medical Center, visiting wounded troops from Iraq and Afghanistan. Later in the day, he traveled to Calvin Coolidge H.S. to thank volunteers who were gathered to write letters to service personnel overseas. It's that latter event I wish I'd known about because I live two blocks from Coolidge and would have loved to participate in that. Coolidge H.S. is also our neighborhood's polling station, so it was exciting to see the president-elect at the same place where so many of us cast our votes for him!

The motorcade of President-Elect and Mrs. Obama : Calvin Coolidge H.S. :
Brightwood : Washington, D.C.
(Click image to enlarge.)

That said, though, I did get to see the Obamas in their motorcade as it left Coolidge and zipped down Sheridan Street to whatever their next engagement was. Word spread quickly throughout the neighborhood that they were at the school and by the time I got there with camera in hand, there was a crowd of 200 or 300 people lining the street. It was a thrilling moment, shared with folks from all over the neighborhood who came out to cheer our next president.

As an added note, on Sunday, the Obamas worshiped at Nineteenth Street Baptist, which featured here as one of The Churches of Sixteenth Street a few weeks ago. The church is about a mile and a half from where I live. Needless to say, it's been a pretty exciting few days on this end of town!

Photo copyright: D.C. Confidential, 01/09