Steve & Mary Park · 2017 Honorees

A profound sense of empathy is at the heart of Little Lights Urban Ministries, the organization
founded twenty two years ago by Steve Park which he now runs with his wife, Mary. Each of them is a person of deep faith and the conviction that, as Steve puts it, “Our souls need compassion the way our bodies need water.” For them that compassion plays out in vibrant ongoing relationships with hundreds of volunteers and with the adults and children living in public housing they get to know as tutors, mentors and friends. What began as after-school homework help at Potomac Gardens is now a collection of programs at five different sites on Capitol Hill.

Both Steve and Mary came to the United States as immigrants from Korea, Mary when she was 6, Steve at the age of 7. He spent several years in Houston, then moved with his family to Rockville where he went to high school. His parents worked extremely long hours and he remembers being a “latchkey kid” with little sense of community. As a young graduate of Boston University with a double major in English literature and Broadcasting and Film, he experienced a spiritual crisis, feeling lost and without a sense of purpose. His parents had founded a Tae Kwon Do studio in Northwest DC and as a volunteer there Steve was helped out of his depression by discovering that he loved children. When he met an 8th grader who “could not read a Dr. Seuss book” he began to see the kind of work he might do. At the invitation of one of his volunteers, Steve visited Potomac Gardens where he saw that the need was far greater than in Northwest.

Mary grew up in Westchester County, New York and majored in psychology at Binghamton University. She went on to a master’s degree in counselling at Columbia Teachers’ College and then moved to the DC area to be near one of her sisters. She thought she would do some volunteering while looking for work but she quickly found “just doing random things with Little Lights” more meaningful than her “real” job. Steve and Mary married in 2001 with two busloads of guests from Potomac Gardens in attendance. 

Steve and Mary think of what they do as offering “sanctuaries of encouragement, hope and practical assistance to at-risk children.” They do this with tutoring, mentoring, a family resource center, and work opportunities through the Clean Green Team landscaping business. They recently inaugurated a series of discussion groups for volunteers and members of the community on “race literacy.” But the most important thing they offer is their steady presence and friendship. With their two children, Kayla and Dylan, they live in Anacostia, not far from the families with whom they are building relationships and they have a deep sense of commitment. As Mary says, “This is what we are doing for life.”