April 3, 2021, Rose Park, Grand Junction, CO
The sky was blue, the weather warm, the view magnificent and Rose Park lived up to its name, a place of various ‘Roses’ and a place you would want to ‘park!’
We were blessed with a variety of volunteers from all over! We had help from New Life church in Grand Junction, to First Baptist church from Hotchkiss, to the Montrose American Legion, to Enjoy church, to the Cedaredge FFA to a local Calvary Chapel church. Finally, to add to this impressive list, 15 employees from our extended Impact Cares community came out as well. You can just imagine what we were able to accomplish with these 90 volunteers! 73 different projects! Talk about a community ‘make-over’ (we could make a TV show out of days like this).
Pay-it-forward seemed to emerge as part of the day as well. One elderly resident who is in hospice had decided, when she’s gone, to give her home to another elderly resident whose home was in bad disrepair. Another example was seen when a group of teens was seen offering to help some of their older neighbors with projects, just because they could and wanted to do so. Camp Impact was especially great! The paying-it-forward here was more about pouring into the lives of kids the ‘life-giving’ Word. One precious four year old had set his heart to win the contest of doing the work and memorizing the most verses and he won! This exercise will pay dividends in his life and those around him for decades to come!
The volunteers included local church members, to a surgeon, to vets, to residents to those who traveled over an hour to get there, just to be a part of helping. When you see a community coming together like this, from all walks of life, from the young to the elderly, from the healthy to those closer to the end of life, it really quickly becomes clear that life is about people, about serving one another and the God who gave them all life.
A neighbor of the community, who is a painter, offered to come and help. He ended up helping several days and was quoted as saying, “I didn't make a dollar today, but I've never been paid more, I was paid in smiles and kindness, and it was the most rewarding job I've ever done.” That, my friends, is what it’s all about, bringing joy to a community by showing them what servant-heartedness is all about. When you can end a project day with neighbors helping to finish up projects, with volunteers blessing and encouraging the folks in the community, with the kids having been enriched through Camp Impact, you know it was a successful day!