Serving in One Body is simple. As each opportunity arises, we will post the event on this page and on Facebook. Simply indicate your interest or commitment to serve by emailing info@onebodydfw.org or by saying "I'm Attending" on Facebook. You will receive a confirmation email with further details.
What a great event it turned out to be! Hundreds of participants along with hundreds of volunteers showed up to enjoy a wonderful day of fun in the sun, supporting the Special Olympics Spring Games in Arlington. Here’s some pics that captured the highlights of that day. Special thanks to all those from South Arlington Church of Christ who showed up! Also, great job all you athletes!
The Soup Mobile was an exciting time to serve, allowing us to gather and to make literally thousand upon thousand of sandwiches. We are definitely not bologna and mustard sandwich experts as of yet but we managed to do it easily and as with our past events, at an abnormally fast pace. God apparently built us so! Enjoy the pics we were able to capture below!
Operation Care Dallas was an overall successful event which hosted the nation’s largest Christmas party for the homeless at the Dallas Convention Center on Saturday, December 18th. This year, more than 11,000 homeless from shelters across the metroplex and indigent kids and their famillies attended, some lining up outside the Dallas Convention Center at dawn. At the event, over 3,000 volunteers served in various roles.
Our special guests, including our homeless veterans, received blankets, sleeping bags, coats and shoes, personal care items, a hot meal, gifts, makeovers, haircuts, entertainment and more. Invaluable resources such as job counseling, housing, medical and legal assistance were also available.
Our group unfortunately was not needed for the prep work originally scheduled on Saturday, December 11th, 2010 due to a great volunteer turnout earlier that morning! Praise God! Some of us were able to return on December 18th, 2010 for the actual Christmas party and assisted with the adults area. We were able to separate clothing and package them for women adults who may have been without during the Christmas season. We were blessed by the event to witness God moving within His people and to share it with others. This allowed us to partake in an event to celebrate Jesus’ birth as well as providing basic necessities to those less fortunate.
Since Ellen was out-of-town during this event, she asked if I could I post a short recap… more than two months later. Memory, don’t fail me now.
One Body DFW, along with other volunteer groups, had the opportunity to help process shoes at the Shoes for Orphan Souls processing warehouse. When the warehouse receives donations, either directly or through shoe drives, events, etc., they are pretty much put into large, unorganized boxes. Our job in processing the shoes was to:
Shoe processing is an important step in the overall process of getting donated shoes onto the feet of those who desperately need them, and Buckner relies on volunteers year-round to help out with the processing.
Despite the mountain of unorganized footwear that stood in front of us, I’m happy to say that our group buckled down and started processing shoes like champs. The Buckner coordinator even remarked that this was the most shoes he had seen processed in a long time. Hooray for teamwork!
Needless to say, the Shoes for Orphan Souls event was a positive experience for all involved, and we look forward to partnering with Buckner again to help out this wonderful cause.
Hello! This is a much belated post to recap June’s Family Gateway Landscaping project. Here are just a few pictures from the day. We spent the morning hours planting flowers in the inner courtyard (see below). What I forgot to capture were the 2 hours we spent trimming and clearing tree branches and brush! You should have seen the number of leaves and branches that were strewn across the lawn and inner courtyard area. Many thanks to AJ for lending his professional tree trimming equipment and skills! We were told that through our volunteer service, we were able to save Family Gateway the money that they usually had to spend to hire a tree trimming service. Despite the scorching weather (105+ degrees), we were blessed to leave the apartment complex with a fresh new look.
Friday afternoon – I stopped by Springcreek Community Church to help organize the donations that the church had received. My first impression when I walked into the church’s main auditorium was, “Wow. This is a lot of stuff!” There was literally a mountain of clothing donations. I had flashbacks of when I worked in retail. Some donated items that caught my attention: furniture (sofas and tables), t.v.’s, and a wedding dress and its matching veil (still in its original dry-cleaning box). Amusingly enough, a male volunteer temporary labeled post-its to sort the apparel into sections. We put the wedding dress in “Ladies Fancy Things.”
Saturday afternoon – The goal was to give away all of the donations in the above photo. Praise God – that is exactly what happened! I don’t have an “after” photo, but there was nothing left. We signed up for the afternoon time slot to clean-up after the event. Only a couple of us were able to commit to this event: Tin, Tiffany , Linh, and myself. However, everything was running so smoothly that if any more people had come, we really wouldn’t have had anything to do! Our assigned task was to clean-up and organize the volunteer meeting room. After some sweeping and chair-stacking, it was back in order for the church to hold their regular activities. Our service experience was brief but was still a good opportunity to serve alongside others.
Thanks to the volunteers for coming out on Saturday and thanks to Springcreek Community Church for organizing this amazing event!
On a side note: We’re wearing “GiveDifferent.org” t-shirts that Springcreek provided. Instead of spending money to make t-shirts for the event, the church saved money and spray painted “Go and Be.Org” on the back of these extra shirts. Springcreek is actively making a global difference in Katito, Kenya by improving the lives of our neighbors across the world. Check it out at www.GiveDifferent.org !
What a great turn out for our first event! Thank you to all the volunteers. I hope you guys had fun and met some interesting people. I don’t know if everyone likes surprises, but I kind of liked the fact that we blindly went into this opportunity. I had no idea what we would be doing. The staff at Mission Arlington was well organized and sent our team out to deliver free goods from the “Handy Tram.” At least, that’s what I think they called it…
We carpooled to an apartment complex that was located a couple of blocks away from Mission Arlington. The tenants were familiar with Mission Arlington’s Handy Tram, because people started following the bus once we pulled into the complex. When we arrived some of the volunteers knocked on doors and informed the tenants that Mission Arlington was giving away free stuff by the apartment mailboxes. The other half of the group unloaded clothes, books, toys, and other knick knacks from the bus. We mingled with the residents and helped them find things and take them back to their apartments. It was a good experience, and One Body DFW plans to volunteer with Mission Arlington again in the future.
