Biden Inauguration Committee Encourages Day of Service on Martin Luther King Jr. Day

The inaugural committee for President-elect Joe Biden is asking Americans to commit to giving back and lending a helping hand.

In time for Martin Luther King Jr. Day on Monday, Jan. 18, the Presidential Inaugural Committee is honoring the National Day of Service by encouraging people around the country to volunteer virtually or in socially distanced opportunities ahead of Wednesday's inauguration of Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris.

The committee has compiled a list of potential community service tasks, as well as a platform to sign up and pledge volunteering commitments for the year to come.

"When Dr. King accepted the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, Norway, he underscored our collective responsibility to strive towards the 'oughtness' that confronts us as it does today," said the committee's CEO Tony Allen in a press release. "President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris are empathetic leaders who know the crisis millions of American families are facing. And like Dr. King, they know that we must have a shared commitment — in word and in deed — to bring the nation together in service to others."

Some virtual ways to be of service, as suggested by the committee, include making cards for patients recovering from COVID-19, knitting items for people who are currently homeless, volunteering for a hotline, doing a virtual read-along for students and more.

Socially distanced ideas include contactless food and clothing donations, as well as community clean-ups or shoveling.

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According to a statement sent by the transition team, Biden will spend the National Day of Service volunteering at hunger relief organization Philabundance in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Harris and her husband, Doug Emhoff, will spend the day volunteering in Washington, D.C.

The Biden inaugural committee also announced it will host a national memorial to remember those lost to the novel coronavirus, to be held Tuesday, one day before the inauguration. Scheduled for Jan. 19 at 5:30 p.m. ET, the event will include a lighting ceremony at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and the ringing of church bells, according to a statement put out by the committee.

"On January 19, we will host a memorial to honor those who have died, with the first-ever lighting around the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool," the statement read.

The inaugural committee added that it is asking cities and towns across the country to join the memorial by "illuminating buildings and ringing church bells at 5:30 p.m. ET in a national moment of unity and remembrance."

Organizers have said Biden's Jan. 20 inauguration will be 75 to 80 percent virtual, in an effort to slow the spread of the virus, cases of which are spiking across the country.