LDS stakes offer helping hand
Well over 1,000 “helping hands” volunteers from two stakes of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints swarmed Farragut State Park July 24.
Citing the anniversary of the pilgrims’ trek to Salt Lake City, Don Callister, member of the high council, Coeur d’Alene Stake, said, “Pioneer Day is a very special date in our church history. The annual celebration was, this year, directed toward community service.” He added, “This is quite unusual, in so far as two stakes, ours and Hayden Lake, came together in a joint effort to help out. Normally, we do our projects within our own stake.”
Crippled with budget cuts that affected the entire state of Idaho, many projects had been put on hold. With the church offering all the labor, the park managed to eke out enough money for materials. Asked what this gigantic effort was worth in money, park manager Randall Butt said, “About 4,000 hours of work represented here, both expert and labor, plus the rental of the heavy equipment, if we had to do it with summer staff, we’d be spending in the neighborhood of $70,000. That just covers the monetary part. The dedication of these people? Priceless.”
This resembled a human ant hill with as much industriousness as the ants. .
Fanning out into several groups, one large segment worked on the Brig Museum. Nominally supervised by park ranger Dennis Woolford, one crew set paving stones in a new sidewalk between the brig and flagpole area. Busy hands raked sand into a flat plumb bed, expert tile and brick layers set the stones, while others followed behind sweeping sand into the cracks between the stones.
The second crew worked on repainting the entire interior of the Brig courtyard requiring 55 gallons of paint. Five pallets of paving stones went into the work out front.
A total of eleven projects were worked on simultaneously. A large crew served at the shooting range road. Rented heavy equipment picked up logs and brush heaped on the roadside while individuals in teams brushed out the approaches to the road in an effort to reduce fuel for the fire season.
Down along the beach, members of the Hayden Lake Stake, were furiously brush-whacking, with pruners, loppers, picks and shovels, opening up trails that had become overgrown with brush. According to David Moreland of the Hayden Lake Stake, “A 1.25-mile trail along the shoreline between Buttonhook Bay and Beaver Bay was being rebuilt where erosion had destroyed parts of the trail.”
He said upper shoreline trails received the same treatment, with 60 to 70 people wielding saws and rakes.
At lunch time food lines were set up to feed the multitude of volunteers, probably exceeding 1,300 lunches. The lunch, donated by the Hayden Lake included fried chicken, potato salad, macaroni salad, cookies and watermelon, plus some yummy looking ice cream bars.
Nobody went away hungry. After lunch, everyone went back to work. As an observer, it was hard to tell who was more pleased: The spark staff or the LDS church members with the satisfaction of the service rendered. Certainly they exhibited community spirit that is unusual in its depth of dedication.