Story Photos
 Photo by Greg Ebersole Weyerhaeuser employee Sharon Mace volunteered for the United Way Day of Caring Wednesday morning by cutting away blackberry briars that had grown over a backyard fence in the 200 block of 23rd Avenue in Longview. |
Day of Caring: 250 spruce of community during United Way volunteer day
Thursday, September 13, 2007 7:24 AM PDT
By Leslie Slape
Printable version
E-mail this articleWhen the more than 250 United Way Day of Caring volunteers gathered in one place, their daffodil-yellow shirts were almost blindingly bright.
But when they scattered all over the community Wednesday, they created a different kind of brightness --- a contagious volunteer spirit that accomplished an estimated $1,900 worth of work in about five hours.
"You couldn't count the number of thank-yous that we got from everybody," said Julia Bishop, whose Cowlitz AmeriCorps team shoveled red rock and painted at the YMCA.
The Day of Caring, which was first held in 1993, is the start of the United Way's annual fall fundraising campaign.
"One of the goals is to give people in the community a chance to volunteer that have never volunteered before," said Kathy Chappelle of the United Way. "It gets them out to see the agencies and see what their money's doing."
"It's a great boon for our agency to get this work done," Bill Reade, campaign chairman, told the assembled volunteers, who gathered at the AWPPW Hall for a kickoff rally at 8 a.m. Wednesday and again at 3 p.m. for a wrap-up celebration.
PeaceHealth St. John Medical Center presented Reade with a $5,000 check at the rally.
The volunteers came from 22 local businesses and organizations in support of 29 different projects, including painting, sorting food and clothing, yard work and landscaping, reading to children, making and serving meals and building playgrounds.
Residential Resources helped Sorensen, who is developmentally disabled, qualify for the mortgage to buy his first home. He moved in last December. But his neighborhood suffers frequent burglaries and vehicle prowls. Sorensen said he was so worried about becoming a victim that he kept his lawn mower in the dining room.
Pam Howe, Residential Resources program coordinator, said Sorensen will be getting a new storage shed on the concrete slab.
"It's going to be an uptown job," she said.
Mace and Warthen work in the shipping department at Weyerhaeuser.
"This is what we do for fun," said Warthen, whacking blackberries. He is volunteering for the first time, while Mace has been doing this for about five years.
"It's automatic anymore," she said. "I see it come up on the calendar and I've got to be there."
At the wrap-up, United Way executive director Bob Johnson asked if "anything cool happened" and heard enthusiastic answers:
Gus Nolte of the Drug Abuse Prevention Center said volunteers from the Chamber of Commerce and Wilcox and Flegel did a "professional job" painting the play area that serves 16 children.
Jody Kirkpatrick said volunteers from four agencies read to 200 children at Wallace Elementary School and 250 children at St. Helens Elementary. All the children received a book of their own from Reading Is Fundamental. At St. Helens, Norpac volunteers --- who have made the school a year-round project --- also assembled "back to school" supply packets, she said.
Carol Carver said 10 women from Red Canoe Credit Union weeded and spread seven yards of bark around the playground at St. James Family Center in Cathlamet.
"When you guys can go out and do that for them, it makes their place look so much better and takes stress off them," Johnson said.
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