Church's community service project draws more than 700 volunteers

By Michael Buettner (Staff Writer)
Published: August 22, 2010
http://progress-index.com/


COLONIAL HEIGHTS (VA) - It may be true that many hands make light work, but the hundreds of volunteers who showed up for a local church's community-service project yesterday weren't looking for an easy job.

More than 700 people showed up Saturday to help with Colonial Heights Baptist Church's 2010 "Chrestos" service project, which sent teams of volunteers out to spruce up the landscaping at 19 schools across the Tri-Cities region.

The church on Jefferson Davis Highway at Harrowgate Road has been doing Chrestos events for about three years, said the Rev. Wes Rose, missions, college and singles pastor. The name of the program comes from an ancient Greek word that means, among other things, "kindness" and "usefulness."

Rose, who was leading a team of about 20 members of the church's singles Bible fellowship as they worked on cleaning up the landscaping at the Colonial Heights Technical Center, said community service is a big part of Colonial Heights Baptist's mission.

"People see the big church and think it's all inside there," he said. "But the church was built to go out from."

Down the road a couple of miles, another group gathered Saturday morning for a prayer around the flagpole at Colonial Heights Middle School before spreading out to prune bushes, pull weeds, rake mulch and whatever else they could find to make the school look nicer ahead of the start of classes.

Ron Kimberlin, leader of the roughly 30 people on the team at the middle school, said previous Chrestos projects have included "going up and down the Boulevard cleaning up trash from the old church (on Chesterfield Avenue) to the new one." The school-beautification project was chosen this year because church members wanted to help make up for any neglect caused by cuts to the state's education budget, he said.

While the Chrestos teams concentrated on schools in the church's current locality, Chesterfield County, and its former home, Colonial Heights, they also went to work on campuses as far away as Prince George County. The schools they targeted Saturday were:

- Chesterfield County: Lloyd C. Bird High School, Matoaca High School, Community High School, Carver Middle School, Matoaca Middle School, Matoaca East Middle School, Margarite Christian Elementary School, Matoaca Elementary School, Ettrick Elementary School, Harrowgate Elementary School and Curtis Elementary School.

- Colonial Heights: Colonial Heights High School Technical Center, Colonial Heights Middle School, Lakeview Elementary School and Tussing Elementary School.

- Dinwiddie County, Dinwiddie High School.

- Hopewell: Carter G. Woodson Middle School.

- Petersburg: Petersburg High School

- Prince George County: Prince George High School and North Elementary School.

Likewise, the volunteers for Saturday's project also came from across the region. Fay Donahue and her mother, Ruth Taylor, traveled from their homes in Dinwiddie to help at Colonial Heights Middle School.

"I think the whole concept is to get out in our neighborhoods and live what we believe in," Donahue said. "It's really critical to give back to the community."

But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region. Matthew 9:31 NIV