Virginia stakes give statewide day of service
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Still reeling from an earthquake, a hurricane and a tropical storm during August and September, residents of Virginia welcomed the community assistance that more than 10,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints provided on Sept. 24, 2011. Virginia Gov. Robert F. McDonnell, who officially proclaimed the date as a day of service throughout the state, called the LDS outpouring of good will and thousands of volunteer hours evidence of a people "who have a servant's heart."
"In tough economic times, it's vitally important that people of faith step forward," he said. "Churches need to get together to help do good works and uplift our citizens, and I've long admired how the LDS Church has done that. It's evident in their membership's dedication to service and the number of people who came forward that day."
President Thomas S. Monson has repeatedly commended members for serving others and has asked for them to continue to do so. During the April 2011 general conference, President Henry B. Eyring, first counselor in the First Presidency, asked members to participate in "a day of service."
LDS leaders in Virginia approached Gov. McDonnell to discuss the possibility of joining with other Virginians in a day of service. The governor endorsed the initiative with a proclamation that also recognized 2011 as the 75th anniversary of the Church's welfare program, calling it "an effort which has improved the lives of countess individuals in our Commonwealth, these United States, and throughout the world and which should be a model to all organizations and faiths as we work together to build a true Commonwealth of Opportunity."
In an interview, the governor said he also admired the way Latter-day Saints live.
"I'm impressed with the LDS sense of mission, not only among the young people whose missionary service sets a high bar to all people of faith, but also among those who lead exemplary lives with high personal standards of integrity and conduct," Gov. McDonnell said.
Living up to his expectations, Church members gave more than 50,000 hours of volunteer service, from the Virginia suburbs of Washington D.C. and the coastal areas of the Atlantic to the rolling plains of the Piedmont and the mountains of the Blue Ridge and Appalachia. Individuals and families from 19 stakes worked on hundreds of projects that either directly supported local charities, humanitarian groups and Christian ministries, or else helped preserve Virginia's cultural and agricultural heritage.
Members of each stake sponsored numerous activities throughout their area, a logistical feat that required enormous planning and coordination; Ashburn Virginia Stake alone served its community on 28 separate projects. Many local businesses helped with donations of painting, landscaping and building supplies.
With rakes and drills, paintbrushes and quilting needles, the Saints in Virginia made a profound impact as they helped renovate, repair and reclaim their communities. They also gleaned in farmers' fields, removed trash and tended gardens. In so doing, they helped provide for the needy while also beautifying their state and cheering their neighbors.
Some families in the Mt. Vernon Virginia Stake, for example, worked together to pick up trash along the George Washington Memorial Parkway, a major thoroughfare in the nation's capital. Others cleared flood debris from the banks of the Potomac River.
"I've been the compassionate service leader in Relief Society, so I knew this would be a way to show my family what we can do to help someone else," said Laura Nielson, who helped her family clean up Roaches Run National Park with other members of the Mt. Vernon Virginia Stake.
Splashes of yellow pinpointed Mormon Helping Hands vests on location at national landmarks and Civil War historic sites, as well as at small community parks, bridges and bicycle paths, warehouses, homeless shelters and public housing projects. In ward meetinghouses and stake centers, members also packaged meals for children, organized school supplies and painted toys. Many assembled USO Care Packages.
LDS youth of all ages were some of the most enthusiastic workers. Some helped prepare playgrounds for children with special needs. Primary children colored place mats for Meals on Wheels and sang to the elderly at rehabilitation centers. The Young Women helped the Relief Society make baby blankets and the Young Men assisted with heavier duties such as cutting firewood and hefting stones to build walls. Some worked on Eagle Scout projects.
Micah Hansen, 16, of the McLean 1st Ward, McLean Virginia Stake — among other efforts — carried groceries for a woman who had come to a food bank requesting a donation for her two infants, mother and sick husband. He said her tears of thanks opened his own eyes to all the other mothers who would benefit from his long day of service.
A major project of the Richmond area stakes was the restoration of Evergreen Cemetery, a historic African American cemetery in Mechanicsville that had fallen into disrepair. Working with Roots, a group dedicated to renovating such cemeteries, and the Black History Museum in Richmond, Church members chopped their way through dense underbrush and reset headstones.
Members of the Fredericksburg Virginia Stake helped clean the grounds of Chatham Manor, once a Union Army command post during the Civil War, and in nearby Winchester Virginia Stake, other members repainted and repaired Post 2021 of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.
Many of those receiving help said the LDS effort far surpassed their expectations. In a letter to the Annandale Virgina Stake, Christine Fisk of United Community Ministries said the volunteers' "care and concern for the community, and the gifts and talents they offered this weekend, touched lives all over the Route One corridor in Alexandria." Nikki Clifford of Food for Others, a food bank in Fairfax, Va., anticipated that members of the McLean Virginia Stake would collect around 500 pounds of food from their neighbors and at booths outside grocery stores. Instead, she said she was "overwhelmed" to see trucks pull up to the organization's warehouse with 9,100 pounds of food.
"The people from the Church just kept coming with bags of food, and then they told me they were going back for more," she recalled.
Other organizations remarked that the LDS volunteer effort saved them precious funds that could be used in other ways. Christie Love, co-director of the Heritage Farm Museum in the Ashburn Virginia Stake, said the 160 Church members who came to clean farm artifacts, stain buildings and improve the landscape had saved her small staff money and weeks of work.
"The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates the dollar value of a volunteer hour at about $22.00 in Virginia," she said. "That's money we don't have, so that makes a huge difference to us."
But that wasn't on the mind of Will Talbot, 10, when he listened to a National Park Ranger tell him where to start picking up someone else's trash. A member of the Shirlington Ward, Mt. Vernon Virginia Stake, Talbot captured the essence of a servant's heart: "Our prophet told us to do a day of service," he said. "Today seems like a good one."
