Community Service Day Volunteer Signups Sought

It’s becoming a tradition in Walnut Creek, and the eighth annual Community Service Day is looking for a few good volunteers—or maybe 1,000—to help take on a project next month.

The eighth annual Walnut Creek Community Service Day takes place Oct. 13, at various locations all around Walnut Creek, as well as a few in nearby unincorporated areas.

The projects range from school campus cleanups and maintenance to painting art-piece pedestals at the Bedford Gallery downtown to helping turn preschool artwork to greeting cards to cleaning the Foothill Elementary School band room and instruments.

The Walnut Creek program was inspired by a similar effort that started in 2005 in neighboring Pleasant Hill. Cindy Silva, Walnut Creek’s mayor in 2011, led efforts to bring a similar program to her city that year.

The projects are arranged to start in April each year when members of the Community Service Day Committee solicit more than 100 community organizations for work that needs to be done, and that can be handled by groups of citizen volunteers.

This year, more than 55 projects are planned. A few of them—Iron Horse Trail cleanup and a Lindsay Wildlife Experience decorating party, to name two—already have the needed quotient of volunteer signups. But most have plenty of slots still available.

Community Service Day begins with a free pancake breakfast at Heather Farm Community Center at 301 N. San Carlos Drive off Ygnacio Valley Road, starting at 7:30 a.m., provided by area Lions Clubs.

To learn more about Community Service Day or to sign up for a project, people can go to their website here.

By Sam Richards.