By Khalida Sarwari
The prospect of doing yard work is not something most people can easily get excited about, but being asked to do it for a friend? Or better yet, for a good cause? That’s a different story, muses Saratoga Federated Church’s Jerry Bruce.
Bruce, a minister of church operations at the church on Park Place, theorized that people tend to feel better about doing mundane chores for others as opposed to doing it for themselves.
“I love helping people, because there’s a good feeling that comes from serving others and I’ve known that since childhood,” said Bruce. “Getting people to help serve–I think it helps the human spirit, it helps the community. So I love facilitating that.”
One way he’s going about doing that is by helping organize “Serve Day,” Saratoga Federated Church’s annual service event that draws upwards of 400 people since they started doing it in 2013. This year’s event, slated for June 5, will follow the format of past years in encouraging residents to take part in any number of service projects throughout the city, from spreading mulch at the Saratoga Elementary community garden or at parks around Saratoga to helping serve breakfast to the homeless in downtown San Jose.
The overarching goal, said Bruce, is “just to serve, just to be good neighbors, just love our neighbors. And we want to encourage everybody to do the same.”
One project this year is aimed at families with special needs children, said Bruce; volunteers will be making improvements to the Animal Assisted Happiness farm in Sunnyvale. Another project will aim to bring Christians, Muslims and Jews together to assist Habitat for Humanity in building a house in San Jose. Another project will ask volunteers simply to pray for their city and for those serving and being served that day.
Other projects include painting the exterior of Saratoga City Hall, spreading mulch at Beauchamps Park, pulling out invasive species plants at Worcester Park in Los Gatos, singing or visiting at the Saratoga Retirement Center, packing meals to be sent overseas, packing hygiene kits for the homeless and writing greeting cards for soldiers.
“We want to teach ourselves that worship means more than sitting in a pew,” said Bruce.
This is the ninth Serve Day for the Saratoga Federated Church. Serve Day is an offshoot of Saratoga Serves, a weeklong service event sponsored by the Saratoga Clergy Association. That event “petered out” after a few years, said Bruce.
Over the years, volunteers that have taken part in Serve Day have worked in 12 different parks and on six different trails, at Saratoga City Hall and Los Gatos Town Hall, the Saratoga Community Center, the Saratoga Senior Center, North Campus, Montalvo, Saratoga High, Saratoga Elementary, Saratoga Retirement Center and along Big Basin Way. They’ve put in hours painting, gardening, singing, sanding, visiting, mulching, pruning, clearing, cleaning, planting and building.
The event on June 5 will start with a 30-minute gathering and service at 9 a.m., after which the teams will meet up and head out to their respective project sites by 10 a.m., working until about noon.
The event is open to people of all ages, capabilities and faiths. To sign up, visitwww.saratogafederated.org/serve.html. For more information, contact Bruce at 408.867.1000, ext. 249, or jerry@saratogafederated.org.
Link: Federated Church calling on people to help others on annual Serve Day
