More than 320 people from across western Washington signed up for an afternoon of service in Tacoma and Lakewood, Wash., at the end of August.
"This is a great event for our conference," says Michael Demma, Puyallup (Wash.) Church associate pastor, who brought a team of 24 volunteers. "This builds team spirit as we work together to make a difference in the community."
Volunteers chose from 16 service opportunities, including helping at a food bank, administering a community survey, distributing health information, giving away 1,000 water bottles, offering medical screenings, distributing GLOW tracts, beautifying a park, singing at a nursing home, seeking Bible-study interests and additional activities.
"Tacoma Community Service Impact Event was designed for people to try out different community service activities," says Byron Dulan, Washington Conference outreach ministries director. "We wanted to provide a venue for Adventist leaders, members and youth to experience new and different methods of witnessing and evangelizing people in the city."
Karalee Garcia, a young adult volunteer from Everett, Wash., decided to help administer a community survey and ended up finding several opportunities to pray with people. "We want to do a survey in our own community now," she says.
Ultimately, Dulan says, "We want to see churches host outreach days on their own — at whatever level."
Robert Renfroe, a volunteer from Federal Way, Wash., assembles food bags at Tacoma (Wash.) Adventist Community Center. (Heidi Martella)
Lynette Thomas, a volunteer from Tacoma, Wash., helps assemble backpacks with school supplies for homeless children. (Heidi Martella)
Nessy Pittau, Washington Conference health ministries director, helps staff the conference health van to provide community health screenings. (Heidi Martella)
Kelvin Wallin, a volunteer team leader from Centralia, Wash., instructs his outreach group how to twist balloon creations before going to the Maritime Festival in Tacoma (Wash.)
D'Andrea Davis, a volunteer from Tacoma, Wash., signs up to distribute Bible-study invitation cards for the first time and is pleasantly surprised at the response of people.
Byron Dulan, Washington Conference outreach ministries director and event coordinator, explains how community impact service days are designed as demonstration events where people can try a new-to-them outreach and witnessing activity. (Jonathan Baumgartner)
From singing to sharing, more than 320 people sign up to make an impact in the cities of Tacoma and Lakewood. (Heidi Martella)
Churches with outreach specialties, such as Bremerton's Serving With All Talents, or S.W.A.T., team and their water bottle ministry, show other volunteers from other churches how easy it is to distribute water bottles with a simple "Jesus loves you" message attached. (Heidi Martella)
Karalee Garcia, a volunteer from Everett, Wash., plans to get her church involved with conducting a community survey after her positive experience with the survey outreach team at the Tacoma (Wash.) Community Impact Service Event. (Jonathan Baumgartner)
