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San Diego College of Continuing Education

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SDCCE Education Honors Martin Luther King Jr. with Hand Welded World Globe Float During Parade

January 9, 2023

MLK Parade Float Entry Designed by San Diego College of Continuing Education’s Welding DepartmentSan Diego College of Continuing Education (SDCCE) will join the hundreds of people marching this weekend to honor Civil Rights Leader, Martin Luther King, Jr. The 41st annual MLK parade is scheduled for Sunday, January 15 at 2:00 p.m. alongside the Embarcadero on Harbor Dr. The MLK Parade is historic to SDCCE’s Educational Cultural Complex campus and the Southeastern San Diego community. 

This year’s float is a massive hand welded metal globe designed by SDCCE’s welding students and Master Welder, Mike Bradbury. SDCCE’s parade entry, “Dream to Learn, Learn to Love, Live the Dream” echoes Dr. King’s vision for unity.

Tuition-free welding certificate programs and classes take place at SDCCE. Students prepare to enter the workforce for shipbuilding companies such as NASSCO and participate in the MLK float building as a real-world experience.

“To mirror a jobsite, students work with a budget and timeline to complete the float while demonstrating stick welding, metal inert gas (MIG) welding, and tungsten inert gas (TIG) welding, metal framing, and advanced metal forming skills,” said Bradbury. “SDCCE’s float aims to recognize the many and varied cultures that make up our nation and to represent those cultures as equal.” 

 “I am immensely proud of SDCCE’s welding department, the float they are creating truly represents the diversity of our college and is sending a reminder to all of us to that we are stronger when united together,” said Dr. Tina M. King, SDCCE President., who will march proudly in the parade for the first time since being selected to lead the institution on July 1, 2022. 

The public is invited to walk with SDCCE in the parade. Participants are requested to meet at 1:30 p.m. in the staging area across from the County Administration Center (1600 Pacific Hwy, San Diego, CA 92101).

The 2023 float entry and past float entries will be memorialized at SDCCE’s Educational Cultural Complex building on Oceanview Blvd as part of the college’s Civil Rights history museum and $35 million state renovation grant. The California Commission to establish Martin Luther King, Jr. Day as a federal holiday and performances by Civil Rights leader Coretta Scott King, award-winning artist and humanitarian Stevie Wonder, and Civil Rights activist and American poet Maya Angelou took place at the Educational Cultural Complex theatre.

Allura Olympia Garis
619-319-0209
alluragaris@gmail.com