By ELISE DALLEY
The Progress
The tragedies of 9/11 remain rooted in the hearts of Americans today, even 21 years later. But that feeling of solemnity can be channeled into doing positive things in the community. This was displayed in a National Day of Service event observed throughout Moapa Valley on Saturday, Sept. 10.
While commemorating the 9/11 anniversary, local community members met together and did a series of service projects which took place simultaneously throughout the valley.
The projects were all published on JustServe.Org, a community-oriented website connecting volunteers with organizations needing community service around the world.
On Saturday, there were six separate projects posted as part of the Day of Service event. Volunteers could sign up online for the project of their choice, and then show up at the designated spot to help.
“This 9/11 event has been going on for quite awhile throughout the nation as 9/11 day.org, in order to commemorate and honor the people that died during 9/11,” said local JustServe coordinator Larry Griffiths. “This year JustServe partnered with 9/11 day.org to promote service projects.”
The six local service events included: a Dolls of Hope sewing service at the Logandale Cooperative Extension office, free Red Cross smoke detector installations, a landscaping project at Valley of Fire State Park, yard work at the VFW Post Home in Overton, and a prayer garden at St. John’s Catholic Church.
There was also a side project included for interested local families. This nationwide project, called Billion Graves, encourages volunteers to go to any of the three cemeteries in the Moapa Valley and take pictures of gravestones. Uploading these to an app would then place it in a database which pinpoints the grave’s GPS coordinates and associates it with the picture. Families anywhere in the world are then able to pull up the photo and see the coordinates and a picture of the gravestone.
The Dolls of Hope sewing project was an especially fruitful experience. Dolls of Hope started back in February. Since then several projects have taken place in various places of the community. Volunteers press, cut, stuff and sew patterns for dolls and stuffed animals which are then given to first responders to be handed out to children in times of distress.
Rebecca and Ashlynn Hardy were two volunteers participating in the Dolls of Hope 9/11 event. Rebecca expressed how happy she was able to help those in need.
“It’s such a great opportunity to help those in our community.” she explained.
Another successful service event on the list for Saturday was a yardwork cleanup rendered at the VFW post home. Those participating spent their time pulling weeds all around the building. There were also cleanup tasks to be managed inside the house where volunteers could also lend a hand.
A small crew swept, mopped, washed windows and vacuumed the interior.
VFW Post Commander Darcy Busman said he enjoyed watching the younger kids vacuum and work so hard. “Everyone did a great job!” he said. “I’m very happy with the turnout.”
Griffiths expressed his gratitude for all the volunteers for each project.
“There have been more people signing up for this than we have ever had.” he said. “The projects we do are successful, but we usually don’t have a lot of people sign up.”
In November, JustServe plans to do a Community Resources Fair in conjunction with the Moapa Valley Pomegranate Arts Festival. Griffiths encourages people to take advantage of these services being showcased.
“These services are free and available to the community,” he said. “We have had a lot of people benefit from coming to the resource fair in the past. So we are doing it again this year.”
