A late morning rain may have cut a few projects off before they were done, but a number of people likely would say today that they spent several hours Saturday making Jefferson City a better place.
Shirley Rollins was one of approximately 350 people who volunteered to work with Serve Jeff City on Saturday morning "to just make sure that everything turns out as beautiful as they expected it to, to help Jeff City look better and more beautiful."
In a sense, their work continues this morning with a separate project sponsored by five downtown Protestant church groups and the third year of their "Mission JC" work.
Karen Enloe helped coordinate the churches' projects.
"That's pretty significant, to have 800 or 850 people working on your community," she said. "I think you will see some differences."
Third Ward Councilman Ken Hussey helped organize Serve Jeff City's fourth year of work.
"I think it's important to give citizens an opportunity to give back to the community," he said, "and there's a lot of projects that just need some "sweat equity' to make it happen."
Rebecca Schuessler helped get approximately 90 volunteers from the Cole County drug courts program, where community service is part of the program's requirements. "And the free pancakes and free T-shirt kind of helped," she said.
She worked at Memorial Park, and helped fill a couple of trash bags.
"I was there for my recovery - and part of my recovery is to give back to the community," she said. "I'm proud of where I'm at today, versus where I was. ... I'm just happy that I'm able to be here today, and not somewhere else."
Sen. Mike Kehoe, R-Jefferson City, provided - and helped cook - the pancakes.
"You always hear people talk about quality of life and nobody really understands what that means," Kehoe said. "But, if you go and look at a Jefferson City park, that's a physical attribute of what quality of life is all about."
Several parks benefited from the work. Jefferson City Parks, Recreation and Forestry Director Bill Lockwood is grateful.
"We get a lot of groups out into some of the remote areas of the parks, along the creeks for clean-up," he said. "We also do a lot of big projects that are labor intensive, like remulching a lot of beds and trees.
"And a big part of it is tree-planting."
Rep. Mike Bernskoetter, R-Jefferson City, helped Kehoe and others with preparing the food before heading off to help with the project.
"It's fantastic, the turnout that we have today," he said. "Everybody wants to be helpful in the community and I appreciate that."
Lockwood and Hussey estimated the community received between $6,800 and $8,000 in donated labor from the 300-350 volunteers who showed up.
Maj. Beth Trimmell and her husband oversee the Salvation Army programs in Jefferson City and Columbia. She was working Saturday morning in the Lohman Prayer Gardens, planting flowers alongside about a dozen volunteers she called "invaluable" help.
"My husband and I would have to do everything that did get done - and we wouldn't be able to do as much," she told the News Tribune. "Anybody who drives by is going to see something lovely, and flowers and beautiful things brighten our hearts, lift our spirits and make us proud of our city.
"And, for our shelter residents who are going through the hardest time in their whole life, it gives them a place to come and sit and be by themselves or visit with their friends - and enjoy."
Kathleen Woodruff, who works for the YMCA, was a volunteer at the Salvation Army site.
"We're people helping people. It's from one person to another in the community," she said. "When people need help - when you recognize the need, you go out and do what you can."
Joy Sweeney was pleased with help she got at the Council For Drug Free Youth office, 304 Jefferson St.
"We are getting people who volunteered to help us file. And we got lighting in our storage closet," Sweeney said as she and Rose Howard painted a donated coffee pot stand. "Obviously, this is very time-consuming, so the Serve Jeff City operation helps us get things done that we can't do during our normal working day."
Howard said, "I always volunteer for these kinds of things - I think it's just a really good feeling that's hard to define. ...
"You can get a great amount of satisfaction and self-worth, by helping others."
The churches' Mission JC volunteers were gathering at the Capitol at 8:30 a.m. today for a brief prayer service, before spending the morning doing more outdoor plantings and some "deep housecleaning" work at the Agape House and several other places, including some local public schools.
Hussey said the two groups work to avoid overlapping their projects.
Howard said volunteering provides "just a really good feeling that's hard to define. ... You can get a great amount of satisfaction and self-worth, by helping others."