Cache Valley Volunteer Center introduces new service project for upcoming holiday season

This December the Cache Valley Volunteer Center is promoting their new project, 25 Days of Service, to all members of the Cache Valley community.

For this project, the volunteer center promotes families and other community members to go out and perform an act of service on each day starting on the first of December and ending on Christmas day. Sharilee Griffiths, the director of the Cache Valley Volunteer Center, said that this project impacts the community in an important way.

“If we have a child or a family that are doing 25 acts of service, there are at least 25 recipients of that service,” Griffith said. “This service not only touches the lives of the recipients, but those who witness their act of kindness as well.”

The acts of service can be anything from shoveling an elderly neighbor's driveway to volunteering at the food pantry. Griffiths said that no act is too small. Community members and families who wish to participate in the 25 Days of Service can do so by creating their own acts of service or contacting the community center for ideas. Sandy Shaw, the business outreach coordinator at the Cache Valley Volunteer Center, has high hopes for what the volunteer center can achieve through this program.

“It really changes that entire nature of a community when you have a focus on what can be done for others rather than what can be done for yourself,” Shaw said. “One thing that we see is that the children who grow up in homes or in schools or in an environment where service is a natural part of life will be involved in the community, making an impact throughout their lives.”

The Cache Valley Volunteer Center is taking suggestions from anyone with ideas for service opportunities for this project. Griffiths said the objective of this project is to train members of the Cache Valley community to be looking around and noticing where the needs are in the community and then getting involved.

“Just do something,” Griffiths said. “It can be as big or little as they want, we just really want families and children to really start realizing that service is a part of life, because that is what makes a community.”

Details will be posted to the Cache Valley Volunteer Center’s website at www.cachevolunteercenter.org. Service project suggestions from the public will be taken through email and should be directed to cachevolunteercenter@gmail.com.