Photograph courtesy of Cindy Harmer
Andrea Davis and Ryan McGee paint easily visible curbside address numbers, as part of a community service project through their church.
Youth do community service projects
By Shari Kaplan
In keeping with their church's history of doing for others, teenagers in the Saratoga Stake (chapter) of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints spent a weekend engaged in service projects benefiting the five municipalities within the stake: Saratoga, Los Gatos, Campbell, Cupertino and part of San Jose.
Over the July 28-29 weekend, 100 youths, from ages 14 to 18, completed many hours of volunteer work as part of the Stake's annual youth conference. This year's chairs were Cindy and Craig Harmer, who live, appropriately enough, in a pocket of San Jose bordered by Saratoga and Campbell.
The conference date was appropriate since July is a special month for Mormons--150 years ago, the first LDS pioneers arrived in the Utah's Salt Lake Valley. Additionally, three years ago former Saratoga Mayor Gillian Moran proclaimed July 24 as Worldwide Pioneer Heritage Service Day in honor of the LDS celebration of its Pioneer Sesquicentennial and of the many volunteer hours local Mormons performed for Saratoga that summer.
The service project goals the teens accomplished in July were three-fold: picking up litter at schools and churches; painting residential curbside address numbers for homeowners who requested it; and compiling school kits for students in Third World countries. The kits contained supplies, including small chalkboards crafted by the teens, chalk, erasers, pencils and paper.
At the churches, the teens also planted flowers, washed windows and cleaned tables. The schools for which they collected litter were Saratoga, Los Gatos, Prospect, Westmont and Lynbrook high schools. The curbside painting was limited to Campbell because that city's police department was the first to give the teams permission.
According to Cindy Harmer, there were 10 groups with 10 teens in each. Groups rotated among the projects. All teams were color-coded, came up with nicknames and had a contest to see who could recover the most refuse at their clean-up sites. The "Blue Clues" team was the winner. Groups that did not have enough clean-up opportunities also visited with seniors at the Odd Fellows Home in Saratoga.
"Service always makes you feel good," says 17-year-old Saratogan Katie Avondet. "My group made little signs for the seniors that said things like 'You're Awesome.' We passed those out and just visited with them and lifted their spirits."
Avondet also enjoyed making school kits. "It reminded me how privileged we are here and how many people in other countries aren't," she adds.
"This gives [the teens] confidence and pride in their community," Harmer says of the projects. She adds that one resident was so adamant about paying for his curbside painting that he threw money at the youths when they said they could not accept payment. Eventually, he took it back.
"This teaches them that money can't buy everything. You can feel rewarded for doing a good job that you don't get paid for," Harmer says. "This also teaches about getting along with kids who they never really got to know or work with before."
Saratoga, California Since 1955
