Saturday, May 4th, 2019 at Peppertree Park – 7:30am to 2:30pm
I attend a regular weekly Bible study in Fullerton every Monday night, so two years ago, when I learned about the Love Fullerton citywide serve day event produced by OC United, I volunteered to help out.
Last year, our crew built a U-shaped bench in the outdoor classroom area for the Agricultural Department at Fullerton High School. Students previously had to stand when receiving instruction or for other gatherings. Now they have a beautiful bench to sit on, all because of the Love Fullerton event.
The year before that, I helped on a team to hang drywall in a garage that was being converted into functional living space in a house where former foster youth lived.
OC United, in partnership with a group called Love Our Cities out of Modesto, has helped launch and continues to produce events like Love Fullerton in eight other cities: Anaheim, Brea, Buena Park, Costa Mesa, La Habra, La Mirada, Orange, Placentia & Yorba Linda.
I was very impressed and thought how much I’d like to see an event like this in my home town of Tustin. After praying about it, I felt that the Lord was nudging me to step up and be the City Leader to establish Love Tustin, so I reached out to OC United and they helped me get things started.
The concept of Love Tustin and all the rest of the Love Our Cities events is for the entire community to come together for half a day once a year (at least initially) to provide resources and labor to complete desired projects for the benefit of all our city residents. We bring together city government, local businesses, non-profits, schools, and the faith community to help “cross pollinate” these groups so we can all expand outside our normal spheres of influence and get to know and work with others in the community.
Groups with needs propose projects, and volunteers then view the list of available projects and sign up to work on one or more of them at the LoveTustin.org website.
We still have openings and could use more volunteers for a few projects. If you would like to help out, please visit LoveTustin.org, choose a project or two and sign up.
The first 100 volunteers checking in on-site at the Rally at Peppertree Park on Saturday morning will get a FREE Love Tustin t-shirt! Also, Oliboli Donuts and Good Stuff Coffee will provide a light breakfast at the morning Rally, and Friends Cafe will provide a light lunch to show our appreciation for all the volunteers.
I hope to see you out there this coming Saturday at Peppertree Park. And SAVE THE DATE for next year – Saturday, April 25, 2020!
