Dayton Christian Center cleans up

Once again this year, we’ll team up with the United Way’s Volunteer Connection Center to host a group of young volunteers on Global Youth Service Day (GYSD). This year’s project will be on Friday, April 15 and will be the fifth year we’ve done it. We’ve never been prouder or happier to be part of it.

This year’s project will be the same as last years, since it was a big success. We’ll be walking through the neighborhood picking up trash and small pieces of junk and generally cleaning up. We’re proud to be here in West Dayton and we’d like to show that pride while giving our young people the opportunity to how important and how satisfying community service really is.

Since our mission statement is “Enriching and Empowering Lives, One Choice at a Time,” we feel it’s important to take pride in the neighborhood. After all, civic pride is the foundation of a more livable, safer, and happier community life, and we want to do our part to create that environment.

But just as importantly, the young people who come to spend their day with us on GYSD not only learn about service and volunteering, they also give us the motivation and inspiration to step up our efforts. We’ve worked quite a lot with young people this year and we have yet to be disappointed by the amount of work and effort they bring with them. And the best part is they have fun doing it – and that’s fun for us.

Global Youth Service Day came about in 1988 as a program created by Youth Service America and the Campus Outreach Opportunity League. From a single day on a single campus, the program has grown to include more than 1,500 projects all over the country. In 2000, the program was renamed the Global youth Service Day to reflect the fact that it now spans national borders and embraces youth volunteerism in many other countries as well.

The young volunteers will cover as much of the neighborhood as possible, and, if time permits, will be taken by DXC’s van to points farther away. If the weather is bad, though, they’ll be paired with our own teaching staff to take part in crafts and lessons with our students.

We’ll be posting an update on how the project goes and how much we were able to get done. We’ll take plenty of pictures to share, too.