Go Pulaski County teams up with JustServe for successful day of service
After several days of serious storm impact in our region, the skies cleared on Saturday, September 28, for 170 adults and 60 children and youth to come together for a morning of county-wide service for two groups: Go Pulaski County and JustServe comprised of members of The Church of Jesus Christ Latter-day Saints who live throughout the larger Virginia/North Carolina/West Virginia region. This year marked the 9th annual Go Pulaski County event, and beginning in early June the work of collaboration for the two groups to coordinate their annual Day of Service was begun.
Each year, JustServe’s Day of Service leadership team selects a certain community to identify projects for their roughly 200 volunteers to complete in a 3-4 hour time period. This year, the leaders had selected Pulaski County for their September 14 Day of Service but knew that Go Pulaski County was also slated to do basically the same kind of service work around the same time. So, after an exploratory conversation, both service organizations agreed that it would be very fitting for us to collaborate and agreed to use Go Pulaski County’s September 28 day to come together. As a result, we set out as partners to identify enough projects to handle approximately 300 volunteers – a first for both of us!
“The way in which Go Pulaski County and JustServe goes about identifying service projects and determining the number of volunteers needed was basically the same, so we knew we could collaborate well,” said Melanie Davis of JustServe. And “given the history of Go Pulaski County as a means to bring people of faith around the county to come together for a single day of service, it made perfect sense to team up with another faith-based group of servant volunteers to cover Pulaski County with loving acts of service,” says the Rev. Terrie Sternberg, current co-captain with Jim Casteele of Go PC.
“Our two leadership teams worked exceedingly well together, meeting often for project planning and communication flow,” remarked Jim Casteele. Dee Whittier of JustServe added that “it was a real delight to expand both of our plans by including each other in the process of serving Pulaski County, especially in light of the terrible effects of Hurricane Helene that took place right up until the day of the event.”
With blue skies and warm sunshine, 230 people from ages 2 to 90 descended on the check-in gathering location – the outdoor pavilion provided courtesy of Pulaski Church of God – to find their project assignment, meet their new teammates, enjoy breakfast foods provided by Bojangles and Hardees, and pack coolers with Gatorade, compliments of Gatorade bottling in Wytheville, and bottled water. Other donors with in-kind and financial support included Thrivent Financial, and Trinity Lutheran and First United Methodist Churches. After projects were completed, everyone – all 200 plus volunteers – were invited back to the church pavilion for a delicious barbecue lunch prepared by Mary Lou Whittier and friends at JustServe!
Along with home and land repairs and maintenance for eight individuals or families, the volunteers did major landscaping, trail and creek clearing, parking lot and building, painting, cleaning, organizing, carpentry and debris removal for sixteen organizations in the county. New this year was a food drive to benefit the Pulaski Community Food Pantry. Three project sites had to be postponed because of the wet conditions, but plans are being made to follow up soon and complete the projects as planned.
Serving on the “core” leadership team for Go Pulaski County are Kathy Anders, Mark Barnett, Jim and Sherry Casteele, Becky England, Darrell Fisher, Amy Hall, Jeanette Hall, Caleab Harless, Terrie Sternberg, and Cindy Viers. This year’s JustServe key leaders were Melanie Davis, Don Hill, and Dee Whittier. Project Site leaders for all 27 projects came from both Go PC and JustServe volunteers.
Next year, JustServe will head to a different county or community for their Day of Service, but the memory of the joy of serving together and making a greater impact of loving care for Pulaski County will certainly linger in the hearts of minds of both of our service groups.
For more information on Go Pulaski County, contact Terrie Sternberg at 540 230-3139 and on JustServe, contact Melanie Davis at 540 320-2771.
