In the community

Annual Community Serve Day aims to spruce up area towns

ONTARIO – Organizers of the 14th annual Community Serve Day event are looking for volunteers.

The community-wide clean up event kicks off Saturday, April 27, with more than 80 projects scheduled.

Yet more people are needed to make the day a success, said Chris Plummer, a Community Serve Day media consultant.

“That’s our big push right now,” he said.

As part of the Community Serve Day, teams of area residents will spread out across Payette, Fruitland, Ontario, New Plymouth, Nyssa and Vale to clean up parks, paint houses, plant trees, build or repair wheelchair ramps, remove graffiti and complete landscaping work. One project, for example, will include the installation of a fence at Ontario Kiwanis Lanterman Park, said Plummer.

The event is organized by the Ontario nonprofit Better Together.

The year’s event will be a smaller one than in the past, said Evelyn Dame, volunteer Community Serve Day coordinator.

She said there are between 75 to 80 projects on the serve day docket, down from 106 in 2023.

More than 20 organizations are pledged to participate in the event, said Dame.

The day will begin with an 8 a.m. breakfast at the Malheur County Fairgrounds cooked by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Ontario second ward, said Dame.

She said after the breakfast, volunteers will move out to their assigned projects by 9 a.m.

Volunteers can go online to www.serveday.info to sign up.

“You can sign up as an individual, group or family, and there are spaces to list skills and assignment requests,” said Plummer

News tip? Contact reporter Pat Caldwell at [email protected]

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