Editorial
Front Page - Friday, February 19, 2010
Community organizations set April 24 as Day of Service
David Laprad
Dr. Ternae Jordan, pastor of Mt. Canaan Baptist Church, and Richard Youngblood, leader of the Mormon congregations in Chattanooga, are hoping 2,000 volunteers will join them for this year’s Day of Service, scheduled to take place April 24.
- David Laprad
The Mormon church, in cooperation with other faith-based organizations, community groups and civic leaders, has scheduled this year’s Day of Service for April 24, 2010. On that day, volunteers will carry out community service projects across the Southeastern part of the U.S., including Hamilton County. The Day of Service is an outgrowth of major volunteer projects the Mormon church did in conjunction with other organizations following Hurricanes Katrina and Gustav.
The event will kick off at 8:00 a.m. behind Park Ridge Medical Center with music and registration. Once the individual teams receive their assignments and head out into the community, work will continue until 3:00 p.m. Lunch will be provided.
Richard Youngblood, president and CEO of Blood Assurance and leader of the Mormon congregations in Chattanooga, says the Mormon church started the Day of Service in 2009 in the hopes of engaging people in their communities. “It was more successful than we’d thought it would be,” he says. “We had a great day. It built up a lot of spirit in the neighborhoods we touched.”
Dr. Ternae Jordan, pastor of Mt. Canaan Baptist Church and founder of the youth-oriented program, Stop the Madness, says last year’s Day of Service empowered the Chattanooga community. “We had close to 1,200 people come together and convene on our neighborhoods,” he says. “They touched about 120 homes with repairs and cleaning. We developed some tremendous relationships, too, so we’re excited again about this year.”
The volunteers performed a slew of tasks, sewing over 100 blankets for donation to T.C. Thompson’s Children’s Hospital, replacing dilapidated windows in a widow’s home, cleaning up trash from under a home in need of repair, assembling 1,000 hygiene kits for local relief agencies and removing debris from creeks in Athens, Tenn.
Jordan says this year’s Day of Service will focus less on homes and more on community improvements. “Where there are walls with graffiti on it, we want it gone,” he says. “Where there are schools that need painting, we’re going to be there.”
“We want the community to look better,” Youngblood says, “because when you look better, you feel better.”
To complete every job on last year’s to do list, East Side Task Force and East Side Weed and Seed, two Day of Service partners, gathered home repair requests from individuals, went out and assessed the needs and then came back on the appointed day with the manpower and materials to get the jobs done. “It wasn’t a handout,” Youngblood says. “We helped where there was a need and had the homeowners do as much as they could. We wanted them to build up ownership in themselves and their community.”
Jordan says the local Day of Service sponsors, which include the City of Chattanooga Department of Parks and Recreation, Orchard Knob Middle School, Hungry Howie’s Pizza and over a dozen more, are shooting for 2,000 volunteers this year.
Since the Day of Service team is aiming higher for this year’s event, it’s putting a great deal of planning into the seven hours of work that will take place. Sponsors and partners are holding weekly meetings, putting committees in place, going out to assess jobs and gathering materials. “We’re doing as much legwork as possible beforehand,” Jordan says.
Both Jordan and Youngblood say they want the volunteers to walk away with more than a good feeling about having contributed something positive to the community; they want them to establish meaningful relationships.
During last year’s Day of Service, for example, Youngblood spoke with a young woman who’d almost decided to stay in bed rather than get up and help out. But she overcame the urge to sleep in, Youngblood says, and wound up making a new friend. “She’d grown up in a good environment, and her family had always taken care of her, but she ended up working in an area of Chattanooga she didn’t know existed and she made one of the best friends she’d ever made — an 80-year-old widow. She said she realized helping out wasn’t about her. “What will people who choose to sleep in miss out on?”
Jordan says they’ll miss out on a blessing. “We’ve crossed denomination lines, racial lines and generational lines, all to make great things happen in our community.”
While the work that will be done on the Day of Service will require skilled tradesman, Jordan and Youngblood say what they need more than anything else are bodies. “The skill set we desire the most is a willing heart and helping hands,” Youngblood says.
To learn more and to sign up to volunteer, visit www.dayofservice.org, click on “Tennessee” under “Service Events in Your Area,” then click on “Chatta-nooga” and then click on “East Chattanooga Day of Service.” Finally, scroll down past the photo to get to the information and registration form.
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