Great Days of Service starts Wednesday

The third year of Great Days of Service, sponsored by the Iowa Park Ministerial Alliance, is scheduled to get underway at 7:30 a.m. Wednesday with a Prayer Breakfast at Faith Baptist Church.

Now in its third year, Great Days of Service is a cooperative effort between local churches, volunteers and businesses to assist citizens in the community with several different projects. This year a total of 223 volunteers have signed up to help with the projects.

Projects for this year include:

Home Improvement - Volunteers work on selected homes owned and lived in by the owner in the Iowa Park School District doing scraping, painting and minor repairs to the outside of the house.

Operation Eden - Yard cleanup of homes selected in the school district. Work includes mowing, weeding, pruning and cleanup around the property.

Commodity Drive - A community wide food drive to help restock the Ministerial Alliance Food Closet.

Sewing - Volunteers make shawls and bibs for residents of the nursing home.

Public Servant Meal - Meal will be served to government and school employees from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Thursday at First Baptist Family Center.

Prayer Breakfast - A breakfast on Wednesday to help kick off the work week.
Celebration Sunday - An event for the area churches, members and volunteers to end the week of activities.

Last Monday night, Project Chairman Paul Arrington presided over the last planning meeting to review each project and receive updates from the committee chairmen.

At that time, three houses had been signed up for repairs, with the probability of two additional home improvement projects. Robert Rankin said he had 30 volunteers signed up to work on these homes. Ten yards will be worked on through Operation Eden, Lewis Skinner is chairman of this committee. It was reported by Kristy Skinner that 36 volunteers had signed up to work in yards.

Forty-four volunteers have signed up to help make bibs and shawls for the nursing home, as well as visit, read and entertain the residents of the home. Nathan Bossel is chairman of the committee. Toiletries are being collected and will be packaged for delivery on Wednesday. Volunteers can still sign up to read to patients and to play bingo and other games.

To show appreciation for Iowa Park, county, state and national public servants such as policemen, firemen, government employees and teachers, a luncheon will be held in their honor Thursday at First Baptist Family Center from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tim Hunter is chairman of the luncheon.

Randy Lovelady is in charge of Celebration Sunday, an event for the area churches,their members, and volunteers. It will begin at 5:30 p.m. at First Baptist Church Family Center. The program will include a video of the week’s work and musical performances.

Local churches helping to sponsor the activities include Cornerstone Word of Faith Church, Faith Baptist Church, First Baptist Church, First United Methodist Church, Grace Tabernacle United Pentecostal Church, Lakeview Church of God, and Word of Grace Worship Center.