Volunteers from last year’s Sept. 11 Day of Service.
Last year, as Sept. 11 loomed, 400 people gathered at sites around the diocese and got down to work. They painted parish halls and cleaned up church yards in beleaguered city neighborhoods. They installed energy-efficient light bulbs in Roxbury public housing, picked up trash along the Merrimac River and stocked food pantry shelves in Cambridge.
Organized by young adult interns in the diocese’s Life Together program, the Day of Service offered outlets for putting Christian faith into action, and promises to do so again this year.
The interns are calling for volunteers and work sites for their second annual Day of Service, planned to coincide with the National Day of Service on Saturday, Sept. 11.
“It allows us, as Christians, to be in conversation with the national trend of increasing levels of volunteering,” says Mary Beth Mills-Curran, a relational evangelism intern who is coordinating plans for the diocesanwide Day of Service. “By participating in this national event through our churches, we are empowered to explore how faith can inform our service life.”
Projects planned for this year include: environmental actions at Emery House in West Newbury and Grace Church in Medford; an effort out of St. Stephen’s Church in Boston to revamp the Blackstone Elementary School’s library; food pantry work at Christ Church in Quincy and St. Mary’s Church in Dorchester; and a service event at St. Andrew’s Church in Framingham to honor veterans. Other planned sites include the Church of the Holy Spirit in Mattapan and the diocese’s Barbara C. Harris Camp and Conference Center in Greenfield, N.H.
Visit www.diomassintern.org/911 for updates and to register as a volunteer. Churches interested in being host sites should contact Mary Beth Mills-Curran at marybeth@diomassintern.org or 508-414-9321.