Action Inc.'s Senior Grocery Grocery Bag program's last distribution, April 22nd, was incredible! Volunteers from the Oconee County Resource Council (OARC), HandsOn Northeast Georgia AmeriCorps, and Action Inc. were on hand to offload food supplies, sort these supplies into the grocery bags, and distribute them to the 36 Seniors currently on the program's active list. All of the Seniors were appreciative and one even prepared sausage biscuits, ham, and fruit to the volunteers! It was a special time for all the volunteers to see how the Seniors reacted and showed their appreciation. There are still some Seniors on a waiting list and, with the help of the OARC, the program should be able to expand to help them too. Next month, a group of Boy Scouts are planning to 'fix-up' a storage room, at the distribution site, and build storage shelves for that room, enabling food and other donations to be stored there. This will help expand the program and may lead to further programs, within Oconee County, for Action Inc. and the OARC. This distribution takes place the third Wednesday of each month, at the Bishop Community Center, with the packaging work done the Tuesday afternoon before. Seniors wanting to be included must contact Action Inc. @ (706) 769-3981 or (706) 546-8293 Ext.#17. You can also check out their new and improved website www.actionincorporated.org for information. Volunteers, check out the HandsOn website for details. It's a great opportunity for you to join-in, help, and see first hand the results of being a volunteer!

My Global Youth Service Day experience was a memorable and exciting one. For my part in this service day I was the volunteer coordinator at Southeast Clarke Park along with the FRIENDS of Southeast Clarke Park. It’s a very beautiful and family friendly park. There were about six enthusiastic youth with me at this site. We helped pull weeds and spread mulch around the park area. Everyone had a great time mingling with each other and getting a great workout while working under the sun. At the end of our activity, each volunteer had an opportunity to state how they felt about the day’s activity. One senior student from Clarke Central High School stated that the students at the high school were not able to get many opportunities to do such activities. She believed that it would be a great idea to get more clubs and student organizations involved in the community, even if its just students taking pride in their schools through activities similar to the one in Southeast Clarke Park. So, look for a change in direction for Global Youth Service Day 2010. There may be more of an effort to get the schools and school district involved in student volunteerism!

Athens Youth Give Back

On Saturday, April 25th, 2009 Athens Youth gave back to the community in a big way. With the help of Athens-Clarke County Stormwater, Athens Area Community Council on Aging, Sparrow's Nest, and UGA Greek Ambassador Program over 30 youth were engaged in environmental projects aimed to increase community awareness of pollution run-off into streams and how to build rain barrels for community use at homes, businessess, and schools. The projects were a great success and the youth were engaged and eager to help out. Most importantly, they learned the benefits of using rain barrels to save water and how pollution can run-off into our streams through the stormdrains in the community. Overall, it was a great day! They worked hard from 9:30AM-12:30PM and every minute was valuable and beneficial time. Our hope is that next year we will see our numbers grow so that the youth of Athens-Clarke County can make a bigger impact for years to come.