Hundreds of smiling volunteers eagerly gathered under white-tented canopies in front of South Valley Community Church Saturday with one simple goal in mind: helping people in need.
For the past six years South Valley has organized two community service day projects each year, Family Service Day in the spring and Compassion Sunday in the fall.
“We just want to find projects where we can be a blessing to people. Anything where somebody can use help in our community, could use three or four hours of volunteers. We’re open to just about anything,” said Pastor Sam Whittaker said.
The projects selected for each Family Service Day comes from the growing list the church compiles of people and organizations that need a helping hand in the Gilroy community.
Members of the SVCC congregation then volunteer to take on the role of Project Leaders. Those leaders then select the projects they want to head up.
This year over 200 volunteers were divided into nine groups, each with their own project which included: free car washes at the EZ Clean Car and Dog Wash, home maintenance for senior citizen residents at Sunset Gardens Apartments, weeding and beautifying the landscape at both, DreamPower Horsemanship, and the Gilroy Demonstration Garden, and a free breakfast for visitors at the Compassion Center. Even the city of Gilroy received help from the volunteers.
“The Christmas Hill creek clean up is under the umbrella of the city, so they know when South Valley Community Church goes out there, we go out there in force,” Local Mission Director, and Downtown Campus Manager, Tammy Stone, said.
Both Whittaker and Stone praised the congregation’s volunteers, crediting them with the success of the past years events.
“This is a huge volunteer driven event,” Pastor Whittaker said. “Every single project has a volunteer leader who does all of the legwork as far as interfacing with the people that we’re serving, and with all of their volunteers.”
The idea behind Family Service Day is to offer every member of the congregation, no matter their age, an opportunity to give back.
“We try to identify projects that are specifically kid-friendly, there’s always two, or three, or four, projects where there’s things kids can do,” Pastor Whittaker said.
Matt Milner, 17, along with his 20-year-old brother, Reid, have volunteered in all of South Valley’s community events.
“Giving is probably the best feeling I’ve ever felt. It makes me feel better than literally anything else,” Matt said, adding, “There’s a quote that says, ‘you never become poor from giving, so I always just like to give.”
One benefactor was DreamPower, the only therapeutic horse center in the area.
“We are just very grateful for them coming, because we are an all-volunteer organization so we don’t have any paid maintenance staff,” said its director, Martha McNiel said.
“They bring 25 people, and give us 75 hours of work, and that’s just a huge benefit to the organization, the property, our clients, because it makes the place look beautiful in ways that it takes a lot of people-power to do. And the only way that we get that power is through volunteers, so we appreciate them very much.”
Long time resident of Sunset Gardens, Mary Dutcher, who signed up to have her outside windows cleaned, echoes McNiel’s sentiments.
“Oh they’re good, they’re good,” Dutcher said, adding, “I love it when they come.”
Director of Social Services at Sunset Gardens, Celina Stotler, believes the volunteer’s yearly visits makes a substantial impact on the lives of the residents, in numerous ways.
“The volunteers from South Valley Community Church assisted more than 25 older adults at Sunset Gardens this past Saturday. This isn’t the first time volunteers from the SVCC have visited Sunset Gardens. They have been helping our residents for many years. Our community here is very thankful to have this opportunity, where volunteers visit and clean porches or windows, dust houses, mop floors, and a variety of other household chores that are difficult, or often impossible, for our older adults to do due to their mobility.
Our Sunset Gardens Community houses older adults living on a minimal and limited income, where they often cannot otherwise afford to pay for someone to clean hard to reach places, or perform the chores they cannot do themselves.
The time and kindness these volunteers give our community helps out a number of individuals and assists in making it possible for them to continue living independently in a healthy, clean home.
Not only do events like this help each individual with cleaning, or improving their household, but they reduce isolation, and build a mutually supportive community between two groups,” Stotler added.
Sometimes, the volunteers have a personal reason for joining the community service event. For Carmen Beltran, her first choice was Sunset Gardens.
“I see the need with seniors, and sometimes if they’re not helped they might end up in long-term care. And so just with the basic needs that are being met today, I think it helps people, and it also helps to remind them that they are part of a community,” Beltran said.
Beltran admitted she had another reason for choosing to work at Sunset Gardens.
“I applied to live here. And so I’m on hold and waiting for a spot to open. I’m 63. So as I’m cleaning, I’m also praying for myself, that God opens doors here.”
Gilroy resident, Rod Kelley, drove by the car wash on Monterey Street last Saturday and noticed the smiling faces, and colorful signs offering free car washes. So he decided to stop in.
“Well I was hoping it was a donation, but they won’t take my money,” Kelley said, shaking his head.
“I’m going by the church on Santa Teresa now, it’s just so great. I’ve been in Gilroy for a while, I’ve been looking for a church, and now I’ve got a chance to join one.”
As for the volunteers, when the workday ends at noon, they are invited back to South Valley Church for a BBQ lunch, followed by family game time.
“So we try and make the projects fun, and also get the families to come back and enjoy it afterwards too,” Pastor Whittaker said, adding that the goal for all participants, and all recipients, of Family Service Day is, “to show the love of Jesus to the community.”
“If at the end of the day, if people felt like, ‘wow, the church loves us, the church cares about us,’ that’s what we want people to take away from it, because we believe Jesus loves them, and cares about them, and wants them to thrive,” Pastor Whittaker said.
