WASHINGTON - Promoting community service, President Barack Obama helped spruce up a local elementary school Saturday as three days of inaugural celebrations kicked off in Washington.
The president, along with first lady Michelle Obama and daughters Malia and Sasha, joined hundreds of volunteers at Burrville Elementary, one of many projects taking place across the country marking the National Day of Service. Standing in a hallway, he pulled on a pair of rubber gloves, picked up a paint brush and helped stain a bookshelf.
Obama added the day of service projects to the inaugural schedule in 2009 and hopes it will become a tradition for future presidents.
The first family travelled to the service event in a black sports utility vehicle carrying the District of Columbia's "Taxation Without Representation" license plate. The White House announced earlier in the week that the president's official vehicles would begin using the symbolic plates for the first time during inauguration weekend — four years after Obama moved to Washington to assume the presidency.
Earlier Saturday, Vice-President Joe Biden, his wife, Jill, and other members of his family spent the morning filling care packages for U.S. troops overseas, veterans and first responders.
"We've had too much of the coarsening of our culture," Biden said. "We've got to get back to reaching out to people."
Other inaugural activities sprang up across the nation's capital on a sun-splashed day in Washington.
Former first daughter Chelsea Clinton headlined a service summit on the National Mall, while crews finished preparations for Monday's ceremonial swearing-in in front of the flag-draped Capitol. Hotels and government buildings along the parade route were adorned with red, white and blue bunting. White tents, trailers and generators lined the Mall.
The president will be officially sworn in for his second term Sunday in a small ceremony at the White House. He'll take the oath of office again Monday before hundreds of thousands of people on the National Mall, followed by the traditional parade and formal balls.
Yet there is decidedly less energy surrounding Obama's second inauguration than there was in 2009. That history-making event drew 1.8 million people for the swearing-in of the nation's first black president.
This time, Obama takes the oath of office following a bruising presidential campaign and four years of partisan fighting. He's more experienced in the ways of Washington. He has the grey hair and lower approval ratings to show for it.
For at least the inauguration weekend, the fiscal fights and legislative wrangling will be put aside in favour of pomp and circumstance.
The White House sees the call to service as a way for Americans across the country to honour the memory of Martin Luther King Jr. The day Obama publicly takes the oath of office marks King's birthday, and 2013 is the 50th anniversary of the civil rights leader's March on Washington.
___
Associated Press writers Darlene Superville, Laurie Kellman and Fred Frommer contributed to this report.
___
Follow Julie Pace at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC
