Mormon Helping Hands Service Project

The Church set aside September 11th as a date nationwide for a day of service for Mormon Helping Hands (you know, the yellow T-shirts we see in the LDS newsletter). Since our stake has already planned to help the Helping Hands Christian Center with a food drive this fall, they decided to move it up from October to September 11th for the service project.

Because of the conflict of Roadshow practice for the youth, we used High Priests and families to pass out flyers on Wednesday, September 9th. We’ve got a nice sized group to pass out flyers on Wednesday then the youth and their leaders to pick up donations on Saturday and take them to Helping Hands Christian Center. We hoped that involving more people would help raise awareness of the service project and perhaps improve participation.

We included an evaluation worksheet in each car doing service, and we collected their feedback there. Here is the data I was able to gather:
* 44 people volunteered to pass out flyers and pick up donations;
* 44.25 hours were contributed;
* 418 households were contacted; and
* 59 households donated items.

It was great because we got more people involved than we have in the past. On the evaluations forms, the youth said,
* "It made me [feel] good because I was helping people."
* "It was great to serve and help the Helping Hands and also see all the houses who donated."
* "Felt great serving our fellow men and the Lord!"
* "Felt good to serve."

Over all, it was an awesome experience for our ward. We felt we were able to provide opportunities to apply gospel principles and feel support in living them as well as create unity and a sense of belonging during this opportunity to provide service.