Photo: A group of volunteers packs food bags for border ministries.
by Dr. Alyssa Fisher, Cal-Pac Director of Communications
Monday morning at Aldersgate UMC was bustling with community pride and a sense of purpose as a group gathered in the fellowship hall for breakfast before heading out to one of seven locations for community projects throughout Tustin. The “Day of Service and Hope in Honor of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.” was a joint effort between Aldersgate UMC and the Tustin Community Foundation.
About 70 volunteers divided into seven teams to serve various organizations across the Tustin community. At Hope Harbor Residential Home, the team beautified the space to create a welcoming environment for teens in crisis, while another group filled 500 backpacks at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church for an anti-human trafficking event. Team Three sorted and hung donated clothing at Village of Hope, a transitional and emergency housing program. Onsite at Aldersgate UMC, participants assembled food kits for migrants at the U.S. border and utensil kits for the church’s Sunday Supper ministry. Team Five engaged residents at Silverado Tustin Hacienda Memory Care Community with puzzles, art, and Bingo, and another crew added soil to raised gardens and beautified the Tustin Senior Center Garden. Lastly, volunteers organized and sorted the Tustin Community Foundation’s storage unit in preparation for upcoming events.
The day included a breakfast for volunteers, an opportunity for quiet prayer in the Aldersgate sanctuary, and work projects from 10-12pm.
As the group gathered for breakfast, several organizers and members of the community spoke, including Rev. Tim Ellington, Senior Pastor at Aldersgate UMC, Maria Longley, the Director of Community Life at Aldersgate UMC, Erin Nielson from the Tustin Community Foundation, and two city council members from Tustin: Ray Schnell and Lee Fink. The group also had the opportunity to hear from one of the organizations benefitting from volunteers on Monday: Tara Booher shared about the history and mission of Hope Harbor, a safe haven of transitional and long-term housing and support services for teens at risk of homelessness.
Throughout the morning, many shared the sentiment from Martin Luther King Jr. – “If I cannot do great things, I can do small things in a great way” as a driving force for their work that day.
Tustin City Council members Schnell and Fink both praised the event, emphasizing the power of service to unite and heal. Schnell remarked, “We do these things to help our neighbor to make sure they are taken care of and loved,” while Fink added, “Through our service, we help heal the divides in our society. Set aside differences and serve our common humanity.”
Before sending out the group for their projects, Rev. Ellington reminded the volunteers that “we do not exist for ourselves, we exist for others. To be a blessing to our community.”
