Church members give 4,000 hours of service in one month

Members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Katy recently held a ‘month of service’ and focussed their efforts on reaching out to a number of local charitable organizations in need of help.

Many in the Katy area will be familiar with the yellow “Mormon Helping Hands” shirts that were often worn when Church members were mucking out homes and helping people get back on their feet after Hurricane Harvey. Reaching out to those in need has become a lasting legacy of the days and weeks following that flooding.

“During Hurricane Harvey, our members gave thousands of hours of service over many weeks, most of it to people not of our faith,” says President Tim Morris, the leader of the Church in Katy. “We felt that there were many more, enduring needs in our community that would be blessed by and would bless us through Christ-like service if we just looked around us.”

Church members established a ‘month of service’ and reached out to nine charitable organizations in the local area. But before the month even got officially underway, more flooding just a few hours away in Beaumont brought 130 members of the congregation to assist families who lost their homes to flooding – rendering roughly 1,400 hours of service.

And then the ‘official’ work with the nine community organizations began. Under the theme of ‘Serve as the Savior’ the Church worked closely with each charitable organization to work on an array of service needs, as identified by the organization. Beds were built and delivered to children sleeping on the floor, meals were made and served to the homeless along with Bible-based lessons. Countless rooms were painted and renovated for charities focusing on youth and children with special needs. Clothes, food and hygiene items were gathered and sorted, meals were brought to families whose children were going through severe medical hardships.

In all, 755 volunteers came to serve and donated over 4,000 hours of their time, including friends and neighbors who were invited to come and serve along side Church members.

As is so often the case, those doing the serving were just as uplifted as those being served. One participant commented, “Our family served every Saturday in the month. At first it felt like it would be a real sacrifice but it brought such a beautiful spirit into our home. It was so refreshing to focus on other people and for our children to see that there are many people all around us living in heartbreaking circumstances. One of the projects we helped with was serving a meal to the homeless. Now every time it gets cold my eight-year old asks if we can go and take food and warm clothing to one of the gentlemen we met there. We got to know them as individuals, not just ‘the homeless.’”

One of the charities that benefited from the service month was Sleep in Heavenly Peace, a national organization that builds and delivers beds to children sleeping on the floor. Says Gary Burns, President of the Houston Central West Chapter: “Our view is that no child should sleep on the floor. When we receive contributions and volunteers like this, it enables us to bring not just a bed, but a sense of dignity and well-being to children and their families. On a typical bed-build we expect that around 25-50% of volunteers won’t show up, even when they confirm the day before. But this time, all of the volunteers showed up, cheerful and ready to work. We accomplished far more in one day than we usually do.”

“Our experiences working with these community organizations have been truly inspiring,” reflects President Morris.  “We are in awe of the work these organizations do, day in and day out, to protect the vulnerable and lift the downtrodden, just as Jesus Christ did. Our goal was to serve our neighbor as the Savior served, and to touch lives by supporting their mission.  It is our sincere hope that we can continue working with them in the coming weeks and months.”

The organizations that were partnered with included The Brookwood Community, Clothed by Faith, Krause Children’s Center, Sleep in Heavenly Peace, Angel Life Skills, Katy Christian Ministries, Christ Clinic, Ballard House and Hope Impacts.