Women's Day of Service

By Linda McMillian

NORTH FULTON, GA —About 170 members of the world's largest women's organization recently came together for a "Women's Day of Service" in our area. Many North Georgia non-profits received much needed help and the Relief Society members connected personally with their community via service.

Vickie Anderson, President of the Roswell Georgia Stake (diocese) Relief Society of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints explained, "The event came about from inspiration found at a meeting regarding the Church's Just Serve.org website. (The website is a free gift to the community as a resource for connecting volunteers on a local level with nonprofits locally and throughout the world.)

"I left that meeting and knew that what our group needed was a chance to serve side-by-side with members of the community and as mothers, daughters, friends, and sisters. I wanted to have an activity that...put us out into the community to serve and give in the places we live and work.

"We had a lot of different and varied service opportunities providing activities for all the age groups involved and also to draw upon the talents and interests of the women in the Roswell Stake (diocese).

"We served at several local non-profits including Helping Mama's, Just People Inc., Books for Africa, and Foster Care Support. We also had opportunities to provide service directly through Just Serve, including, Find A Grave and My Very Own Blanket and some Earth Day projects cleaning up parks Downtown.

"We were able to serve using skills and developing skills in some of our younger women, including making weighted hand shaped blankets to donate to the Scottish Rite PICU, making the blankets for My Very Own Blanket, and doing Family History in the Family History Center at the Church."

As a participant in the Day of Service, Dionne Matthews reported her experience: "A group of us— women, young women, and Primary children— put together an ice cream party for a group of special needs adults at a place called Just People at their residential location in Roswell. We played games and socialized and prepared and served an ice cream bar with all kinds of fun toppings... it was so fun to feel how excited they were to have company!

"The youth and women participating noted that 'we all felt happier spending time with them than they did with us! They were just delightful!' We hope to make this an ongoing relationship and look forward to more time spent together in the future."

Relief Society member Katie Allen noted, "I was in charge of the Find-A-Grave service activity. Find-A-Grave is a website that you can use for free to search for relatives' cemetery records, including GPS location and pictures of headstones. We had about 20 people attend our group, including children, teenagers, and adults. We met for instructions to start and then dispersed around the cemetery, which was quite large, in groups of 2 or 3 people.

"Our 3 objectives were to add pictures of headstones that were needed, to add GPS where needed, and to add a memorial if there was nothing recorded at all yet. (A 'memorial' is just the individual's page on Find-A-Grave that lists their information and shows the headstone and location.) There were over 500 graves that needed pictures, over 7000 graves that needed GPS and an unknown amount that needed a memorial added. We were successful on all accounts! In fact, before starting, 46% of the graves recorded in Find-A-Grave at this cemetery had GPS. After our morning of work 51% of the graves had GPS.

"I felt tremendously happy that we could serve and help people who might be searching for their relatives. I felt thrilled that perhaps we were playing a small part in connecting families and helping those with a desire 'to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers.'" (Doctrine and Covenants 110:15)

If you are interested in personally serving in the community, ongoing and emerging service needs of local non-profit groups can be found at Justserve.org.