Student awarded first Ivan Bush Community Service Award for more than 400 hours of volunteering at MLK Center

From the moment he arrived in Spokane, Ivan Bush “poured his heart and soul into this community,” Freda Gandy said to a rapt audience Monday morning.

Bush, former director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center, the position Gandy now holds, made it is life’s work to help young people navigate the tumult of growing up through serving their community.

After Bush’s death in June, Gandy and the center created the Ivan Bush Community Service Award to recognize young people for contributing to their communities, giving back and making a difference.

Genae Langford, 16, became the first recipient Monday.

Bush was the equal opportunity officer for Spokane Public Schools for more than 20 years.

He spent years advocating for Spokane to name a street after King, and for decades he organized the city’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day marches, even before the celebration became a national holiday.

Bush mentored Gandy, helping her prepare to run the center. Gandy told the crowd Monday she remembers in 2011 when a man with white supremacist ties planted a bomb on the MLK March route.

While authorities noticed the suspicious backpack and rerouted the parade preventing catastrophe, Gandy was still shaken.

She recalled telling Bush she couldn’t step into the role of leading the center.

“He said, ‘Yes, you can,’ ” Gandy recalled. “He said, ‘You can do this!’ ”

Now, more than a decade later, Gandy’s leadership has helped create space for Langford to thrive. She has been going to the MLK Center since she was 3 years old.

“It’s just kind of like my second family,” Langford said.

When she got into high school, Langford realized she was ready to step into a bigger role at the center in Spokane’s East Central neighborhood, volunteering her time to help others.

In the past two years, she has volunteered more than 400 hours of her time, helping Gandy and younger children.

The center gives Langford purpose and is “just a place to be safe,” she said.

Bush’s wife, Fannie Bush, and the couple’s children flew in from Maryland for the presentation of the award and to celebrate MLK Day.

Fannie Bush said she feels humbled knowing the community service her husband provided in the past still makes an impact in Spokane. The award, she hopes, will help keep both her husband’s and King’s dream alive.

“To me, dreams have no boundaries,” she said.