Volunteer effort grows

Had it not been for the red-shirted churchgoers who arrived in yellow buses Sunday, the broken windows, doorknobs and locks at Victory Boxing Club might have gone unfixed for years.

And who knows whether the peeling paint and rotted wood would ever have been stripped from Linda Stark's north Omaha home.

At these and 150 other sites from Fremont to Council Bluffs, volunteers reached out to their communities by landscaping, painting, cleaning and performing other good deeds.

It was the fifth annual Step Out and Serve.

What began in 2005 with one church and a thousand volunteers today has grown to 6,000 volunteers from 30 area churches.

Coordinators say the event is now the largest service project day on a Sunday in the country. They estimate that the volunteer program has given the community nearly $2 million in free labor.

Warm fuzzies were felt by everyone from recipients to passers-by to workers.

“It feels good; it just feels good,” said Suannette Bermudez, a volunteer from Union Memorial United Methodist Church in Omaha.

Bermudez said she has driven through the Victory Boxing Club's south Omaha neighborhood many times but never knew the spiritual and physical muscle-building that went on inside.

Now that she helped deep clean the facility, she's feeling more invested in the youth club's growth.

Founder Servando Perales was touched and tickled that the place was tapped as a service site.

“It's amazing to know this work is not in vain,” he said, “that there are people who care about what we're doing and about the community as a whole.”

Volunteers wearing red Step Out T-shirts could be seen outdoors removing graffiti, restoring playgrounds, performing light construction work on public school buildings. The Omaha Fire Department partnered with Salem Baptist Church to install smoke detectors in about 35 homes that had none.

At Omaha's Open Door Mission, visitors could see the impact of the day on the faces of laughing children. There, more than 250 members of Omaha's Westside Baptist Church not only performed needed maintenance, they also put on a carnival, cookout and concert for low-income and homeless families.

Echoing a comment at orientation, Shawna Ahmed, who monitored the carnival's inflatable Happy Hopper, said: “We want to be Jesus with skin on for the kids — show them kindness and let them have a good time.”

The Rev. Mark Ashton, pastor of Omaha's Christ Community Church, which created Step Out and Serve, said this year's event carried a special punch as residents and agencies feel the pinch of an economic recession.

“It means that much more that the church is on the spot,” he said.

Ashton was among dozens at the home of Linda and Tony Stark. So were his wife and four children, including daughter Caysie, who spent her 13th birthday painting a gate.

“I would not miss this,” the new teen said.

For the Starks, who both struggle with chronic health ailments, a new paint job was a godsend.

The last time the house felt a paintbrush was a decade ago. Finances as they are, Linda said she was unsure if there would have been a repeat performance in her lifetime.

There she was Sunday, though, watching the house's faded white exterior turn to yellow and its window trim to burnt orange.

“This proves that not everyone is out just for themselves,” Linda said. “It lifts you up — gives you hope.”

Contact the writer:

444-1224, cindy.gonzalez@owh.com

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