via flickr user shoehorn99

Sure you get off of work for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and alternate side parking is suspended, but there are way better ways to honor the legacy of America’s most famous Civil Rights leader in Brooklyn than by sleeping late and not having to move your car for a few hours. All weekend long and into Monday, you can freely (like actually for free) participate in several Brooklyn-based cultural events that offer tribute to the man who committed his life to peace, freedom and justice for all — or find a local volunteer opportunity to follow your own call to service. 

Brooklyn Children’s Museum, 145 Brooklyn Avenue, 718 -735-4400, Saturday and Sunday, 1:30 pm, free with museum admission (ages 6 and up).

Perfect for families, this program features an arts and crafts project inspired by the work of Coretta Scott King, Civil Rights activist and widow of MLK, Jr. The program encourages you to “use your mind’s eye to design a creative craft about the King family.”

Puppet’s Jazz Bar, 481 Fifth Ave., (718) 499-2622, Sunday, 4-6 pm.

The Poetic Notion Experience presents Funkin’ For Martin Luther King, Jr, a show inspired by MLK’s fight for peace and freedom, featuring Beverly Holmes, Mekka Timberlake, Lisa Roma, Vinnie Messina, Mike Czekaj and Rob Darnell.

Brooklyn Academy of Music, 30 Lafayette Avenue, 718.636.4100, Monday, 10:30 am, free.

The 25th Annual Brooklyn Tribute to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. features a keynote address at the Howard Gilman Opera House by novelist and social commentator Walter Mosley and performances from Persuasions and the Reverend Timothy Wright Memorial Choir of the Grace Tabernacle Christian Center. This event will be followed by a free screening of the documentary, Neshoba: The Price of Freedom. Other BAM events this weekend feature free music and an exhibition of students’ artwork inspired by King’s legacy.

LIU Blackbirds mascot, via flickr user Kevin Coles

Long Island University WRAC Center, 161 Ashland Place, Monday, 2:00 pm, free.

A free kids’ (ages 8-12)  basketball clinic will follow the Division 1 women’s basketball game between the LIU Blackbirds and Mount St. Mary’s.The PS 307 Diamonds Cheerleading Squad and MS 113 Marching Band will also perform. To register for the clinic, contact Greg Fox, LIU Associate Athletic Director, at 718-488-1018 or gfox@liu.edu. Tickets to the game are free.

Volunteer:

Martin Luther King Jr. Day is also known as the Martin Luther King Day of Service, which encourages Americans to give back to their local communities. Check the official site to find a service project near you. Or check out The New York Coalition Against Hunger to register for the MLK Serve-a-Thon, a volunteer event designed to help out the city’s food pantries and soup kitchens.

Red pandas share a branch at the Prospect Park Zoo. We can see where this is headed.

NSFW animal-mating demos are just one of of the attractions of a weekend-long love-fest sponsored by the Heart of Brooklyn, the partnership of cultural institutions near Grand Army Plaza. On Saturday, it’s love, family-style for stories and card decoration at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum’s “I love you because…” from 11:30 to 12:30 and 2:30 to 3:30. On Sunday, you can take free old-fashioned trolley rides through the neighborhood and Prospect Park from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., or glide hand-in-hand at Wollman Rink with half-priced admission from 10 a.m to 1 p.m. The Prospect Park Zoo is offering some less-wholesome (but still perfectly natural) amusement in their “Animal Dating and Mating” program from 2 to 3:30, which explores reproductive strategies, “why size really does matter” and a live animal demo! See HOB’s complete list of V-weekend events and attractions here.

Saturday at 4, They Might Be Giants perform a free concert at the Prospect Park Bandshell for a $3 donation, as part of Celebrate Brooklyn. Info, here.

Also on Saturday, the Kris Waldherr Studio-Gallery (this woman is amazing), is hosting an opening for the show, Brooklyn: Through a Child’s Eyes,” featuring the illustrations of 21 kids ages 3 to 9, who created the work in a single afternoon recently. There’s a book, too. Noon to 3, 1501 Newkirk Ave. (entrance on Marlborough Road, around the corner from subway station), 347-406-5811.

If you’re hitting the road or the skies this summer, plan now for a bon voyage at Flight 001′s sample sale Saturday and Sunday at their Smith St. location (132 Smith St.). The travel store, whose online product menu includes everything from aerotherapy to “jet comfort,”  is celebrating Bastille Day and selling “one of a kind” samples, cds and an assortment of bags. There’s also a packing-themed raffle.

Or brings the kids to the Brooklyn Children’s Museum (145 Brooklyn Ave. at St. Marks Ave.) tonight at 5 for the first of the Target Free Friday Family Jams. Ugandan music and dance will be featured tonight, with some film shorts and African Pearl Troupe leading a drum session (bring your own drum to join in), 5-7:30; admission free after 5. Then come back for the museum’s Sportacular Weekend (Saturday and Sunday), where the family can learn about world sports, fitness and nutrition and the athletes of the animal world (maybe even some aquatic?) through two all-day schedules of demonstrations, activities, lessons and music. 11:30 to 5, both days.

Red Shed Community Garden (266 Skillman Ave. at Kingsland Ave.) in Williamsburg is holding a mega BBQ/benefit on Saturday, with $2 hot dogs, $3 burgers and sausages, free salads and sides, a raffle for dinners and services, a book swap and, oh, yeah, you get to see the workings of an urban organic garden. 1-6 p.m.

Sunday brings the kickoff the Jelly NYC Pool Parties at their new home in East River State Park (no pool here, but there’s some water nearby, so they kept the name). Still, there’ll be DODGEBALL, basketball, food and of course the DJs and bands. Sunday’s line up includes Mission of Burma, F***ed Up, Ponytail and Jemina Pearl. Gates open at 2 p.m., 90 Kent Ave. at N. 9th St.