Danville Lend-A-Hand Day connects young and old to community service
DANVILLE -- For those keeping track, April is National Volunteers Appreciation Month and May is Older Americans Month. On Saturday, the city of Danville did a mash-up called "Lend-A-Hand Day" pairing people who like to help with people who could really benefit from it.
Each year, Lindy Sable has a special treat for her visitors.
"These are Grandma Sable's cookies. They're really good," she said laughing.
This year when she met her guests, the treats weren't needed as a bribe.
Harish Rajpal, his son Niha and Sable's neighbor Klaus volunteered to help plant flowers in the backyard of her Danville home. It's something the former kindergarten teacher has a hard time doing these days.
"I used to do all that stuff: teach, work in the yard. As you can see, it's a big yard but, no, I'm going to be 78 in a month so I try to keep going," Sable said.
Help comes courtesy of the Danville Senior Center which, each year, organizes the "Lend-A-Hand Day." Volunteers met in the morning to be assigned to homes of seniors who needed assistance keeping up their outdoor spaces. Much of the emphasis is on connecting young people with the elderly.
"You know, yard work can be overwhelming, especially after all the wonderful rain that we've had," said program organizer Leah Martinez. "The weeds grow high, the grass grows thick and these volunteers might be getting their first gardening experience. So it provides a meaningful volunteer experience, as well."
Matt Hayward showed up to volunteer. He has volunteered for the cleanup for years and said that, besides napping, it's one of his favorite things to do.
"These are the elderly; they've got disabilities," he said. "Maybe they can go out and do a little bit of weeding, stuff like tha but it's much easier for people like us to go out there and do it and help 'em when we can."
Back at Sable's house, 14-year-old Nihal was already a veteran volunteer. Last year, he signed up himself and his father to be part of the Lend-A-Hand project.
"I just saw it and signed up for it. Looked cool," he said. "Sometimes I don't really have anything else to do so, if you can help someone, you should do it, right?"
His dad Harish said it has now become a yearly bonding experience for them.
"I think we like to have things to do together and it was a great part to be here," he said.
Lindy spent her career teaching very young children to work as a team. She believes volunteering is especially important for this generation, which often seems to lack strong connections with other people.
"Yes, we are missing that, very much so," she said. "Just because everybody is so busy. The kids are so programmed. They go to school and then they go to sports and so we do need to take this time to look around and see what's needed in our community."
Saturday marked the 20th annual Lend-A-Hand Day. In all, the event drew 96 volunteers, ranging in age from 12 to 73.
There's a saying: the most important thing you can give someone besides your love is your labor. On Lend-A-Hand Day, young and old both gave a gift to each other. Not to mention the cookies.