2014 "Day of Community Service" was a great success!

2014 Annual “Day of Community Service”

Saturday, April 26th, 2014  was the 5th annual  “Day of Community Service” throughout the states of California and Hawaii, where 80,000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) join together to serve their communities  .  Locally, members of the LDS Church in the SD East Stake (including La Mesa, Del Cerro, Tierrasanta, Allied Gardens and SDSU) partnered with members of the Grantville-Allied Gardens Kiwanis Clubs to hold a massive food drive to benefit the San Diego Food Bank.

A week before the event volunteers canvassed their neighborhoods and schools dropping off paper bags and asking for food donations.  Their requests were received very well as a spirit of compassion, love and service filled their communities.  On Saturday, April 26th, 2014 the distributed bags were gathered and delivered to the LDS Church building in Allied Gardens where the volunteers spent the morning boxing up thousands of pounds of donated food in preparation for the Food Bank to pick it all up and weigh it on Monday morning.  The volunteers gathered 5,149 pounds of food for the Food Bank this year.   It was a good day!

La Mesa Vice Mayor Kristine Alessio presented the volunteers with a proclamation from the City of La Mesa expressing appreciation and gratitude for their efforts.  Becky Davies, Regional Director of Public Affairs for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church)  read a proclamation sent over by the office of District 7 Council Member Scott Sherman which thanked the participating organizations for their volunteerism and declared April 26th as a “Day of Community Service” in San Diego.

Robin Gephart, organizer for the LDS Church and Kathy Wiskur, organizer for the Kiwanis Organization both found this partnership to be a very good fit and will continue to work together throughout the year on projects that will benefit and serve their communities.