More than 600 members of Prairie Grove Christian Church recently came together to spend a day especially set aside to help others in the community and some as far away as Haiti.
This is the fifth year the church has sponsored what it calls "The Great Serve." The 2016 service day was held Sunday, April 10.
"We're trying to make an impact on our community," said pastor Vance Eubanks.
The church's mission is to love God, love others and serve others.
"The Great Serve helps us to communicate that," he added.
Church members were involved in 25 projects spread throughout the community. Most of the service projects were in Prairie Grove. However, a few groups helped in Lincoln and Prairie Grove. Some volunteered in groups of 15 or more and others were smaller teams working on projects.
The largest group, about 100 people, stayed at the church to put together meals for people in Haiti. The church partnered with The Pack Shack of Rogers, a non-profit organization that helps provide food, hygiene and personal items for those in need.
The Shack Pack provided all the food items and volunteers packed 31,080 meals, each enough to feed one meal for six to eight people. Each sack included dried food items, such as rice and beans.
The sacks will be placed in boxes and placed on a barge traveling the Mississippi River, eventually making it to Haiti.
As part of the project the church paid $7,500, or 25 cents per meal, for the food to help with costs.
Eubanks said the partnership with The Shack Pack gave older church members and families with young people the opportunity to be involved in The Great Serve.
Other projects included raking lots of leaves behind Prairie Grove Senior Center, cleaning up yards, removing dead trees, mowing yards, planting flowers and painting. They worked in the Prairie Grove and Lincoln community gardens and installed an outdoor library area at Bob Folsom Elementary in Farmington.
This is the first year that Abigail Ghan has participated in the Great Serve.
"I think it's a great way to get out in the community and meet people and be a direct influence without anything expected in return," Ghan said. "It is a way to step out and love others."
Eubanks said some of the people they help are church members. Others are neighbors of church members. He said he does "a lot of running around" to get names of those who need help with projects.
"We want to do good deeds to create good will to be able to share the Good News," Eubanks said.
"Our motivation is that we want to be a light in the community and set the pace for the kind of community we live in."
Community on 04/20/2016