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Local Danville Church Mobilizes 2,000 Volunteers
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By Deana Dickerson, Resident since 2003
On a typical Sunday morning, Wendy Hagen, a mother of three, would be loading up the car for early soccer games or church. But this wasn’t a typical Sunday. Instead, this Teen Esteem speaker grabbed her 11 year old daughter and friend and set out for CPC Danville’s Serve Day. Taking place the first weekend of October, this year’s Serve Day event gathered 2,000 local residents to volunteer at 45+ different projects around the Bay Area.
With one of the broadest reaching, intergenerational gatherings of volunteers, Serve Day mobilizes people to feed the homeless, clean up schools, write letters to U.S. service members and much more.
“Although Christmas Eve and Easter are our biggest days,” said Tyler Scott, Lead Pastor of CPC, “Serve Day is our BEST day. It sends a powerful message--instead of ‘going to church’ that weekend, we cancel our weekend worship services, and go out to ‘be the church’ by serving others.”
Every October, Serve Day weekend provides local opportunities to serve in Alamo, San Ramon, and even right in Danville on CPC’s campus. Sorting crayons for the Crayon Initiative, organizing glasses for the Lion’s club, and making blankets for Project Linus were just some of the projects worked on by the roughly 700 volunteers on CPC’s campus.
No one is too small to lend a helping hand.
“We intentionally serve both secular and faith based organizations, and the volunteer workforce is a reflection of that,” said Deana Dickerson, Director of Serve at CPC. “Serve Day weekend brings people together from all backgrounds and often with no faith at all. Our hope is that at the end of the day people feel loved and valued, knowing we are for them as Christ is for us.”
Another 1300 volunteers ventured into the San Ramon Valley corridor and beyond, serving in places like Kids Against Hunger in Pleasanton, Restore Ministries in Concord, and in the Tenderloin with SF City Impact.
Volunteers helped several schools in SRVUSD and beyond with landscaping and general cleaning.
New this year, CPC added the San Ramon Valley Education Foundation’s Run for Education, the Nephrotic Foundation, the Northern California Chapter of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation and several schools to its list of projects.
In January, the church launched its “FOR the Valley” initiative, in an effort to encourage the people of the San Ramon Valley that God is for them, and equip its people to carry out that same message. Every Serve Day volunteer had the word “for” on the back of their shirt which has quickly become the mantra for this church.
“For far too long the Church has been known for what it’s against,” added Pastor Scott,
Those looking to for ways to serve throughout the year can find them on CPC’s Serve page at http://www.cpcdanville.org/ serve/. To watch this year’s recap video, go to: http://www.cpcdanville.org/serveday/.
CPC Danville is located at 222 West El Pintado and hosts church services Saturdays at 5pm and Sundays at 9am and 10:45am.
