80,000 Volunteering to Help Renew California's Parks on Saturday

Mormon Helping Hands to Perform Necessary Labor at 200 Parks Throughout State

CALIFORNIA, May 4 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Up to 80,000 members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and their friends throughout California will volunteer on Saturday, May 8, by laboring in state, regional and city parks that have been hit hard by the recent downturn in the economy.

Under the banner of Mormon Helping Hands, an international volunteer program of the Church that has provided manpower in distressed communities and organized relief efforts after natural disasters, the LDS volunteers have chosen parks in their own communities to perform work that ranges from clean-up and maintenance to painting and construction projects.  

"Members of the Church in the 1840s were instrumental in the establishment and building up of the major cities of the state, from San Diego and Los Angeles to San Francisco and Sacramento," said L. Whitney Clayton who presides over California for the Church. "We want to follow Jesus Christ's example of service to others by helping to improve the communities in which we live, especially during these tough economic times for local and state governments."

Church members and their neighbors and friends will perform service in about 200 parks throughout the state. Here are just a few of the projects:

• In Sacramento County: Construction of a natural playground, weeding of non-native plants, restoration of a pond and other projects at Effie Yeaw Nature Center in Carmichael. Funding for Effie Yeaw is being cut from the county budget July 1 and the work projects are part of an effort to keep the nature center open.

• In Coloma: The painting and restoration of several buildings at the Marshall Gold Discovery State Historic Park, where early members of the Church helped to discover gold and spark the Gold Rush. The state park has been threatened with closure.

• In San Diego: More than 1,000 volunteers will be performing beach clean-up projects up and down the southern coast.

• In Redlands: Church congregations have coordinated with the city to refurbish public facilities and add amenities at local parks. The project received a $35,000 grant from the Home Depot Foundation to cover the cost of materials.

• In Red Bluff: Hundreds of volunteers will perform projects at the William B. Ide Adobe State Historic Park. Ide, an early Mormon, was a pre-Gold Rush pioneer who was the first and only President of the California Republic under the Bear Flag Party Proclamation of 1846.

• In Los Angeles: Church congregations will work with the City of Los Angeles to clean and restore sections of the iconic Griffith Park.  LA City Councilman Tom LaBonge has been instrumental in supporting the volunteer efforts as a model for volunteer and municipal resources working in harmony to accomplish a worthwhile project for the community.

• In Inglewood: the Jesse Owens Community Regional Park will undergo a transformation for the first time in 20 years as church congregations paint walls, buildings and fences, plant new shrubbery and perform general cleanup.

• In San Dimas: Church congregations will work to paint, clear foliage and clean up on the grounds of  the McKinley Home for Children, an organization that helps repair the lives of abused children.

There are projects in almost every community in California. To receive information on a service project in your area, please contact:

For more on the churchwide Helping Hands program, go the Church's Newsroom at http://www.newsroom.lds.org/ldsnewsroom/eng/news-releases-stories/-mormon-helping-hands-program-a-decade-of-service.

SOURCE The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints