Annual Day of Caring

This archived article was written by: Kambrea Tanmeo

“If you want to see a change in your community, United Way’s Day of Caring is the best way to make that happen,” said Emma Rowley, USU Eastern SUN Center president. On Saturday, Sept. 7, USU Eastern students, faculty and staff, plus members of the local community donated their time to United Way’s Day of Caring helping over 50 projects in the community.
The Day of Caring is a national service day offered throughout the United States with the local event hosted by United Way of Eastern Utah.
Team members from the projects met with the volunteers at 7:30 a.m. in the Fresh Market parking lot where they could hear about the different projects and decide what they wanted to do. They split into groups and went to work at the projects.
Some volunteers were assigned to clean the Price River Parkway, Boys and Girls Club, shooting range and picking trash up at Wood Hill, while others were seen fixing houses around the neighborhood, or even building a house for Habitat for Humanity.
Ben Bjarnson said, “The greatest thing about day of caring is seeing the community pull together.” As the day progressed, people would drive up and ask if they could help at a project.
One specific group was the USU Eastern men’s basketball players and their coach Adjalma Becheli. They helped on several projects while sporting their USU Eastern T-shirts. SUN Center director, Terry Johnson said, “I am so thankful for the basketball coaches in encouraging and having the players come and help.”
After all the service was over everyone, meet at the park and discussed what happened. Food was donated by Fresh market, and K-mart Terry Johnson exclaimed, “We worked hard but had an awesome time”