'Days of Caring' begins Friday at courthouse
By Becky Barclay
Published in News on September 12, 2007 1:46 PM
Friday will kick off the 14th Annual Days of Caring across Wayne County.
The week-long campaign will begin with a ceremony at 8:30 a.m. on the steps of the county courthouse.
Jimmie Ford, this year's United Way campaign chairman, will open the ceremony, followed by Dennis Jacobs of Christ Centered Church giving the invocation.
Mayor Al King and County Commissioners Chairman John Bell will read resolutions proclaiming the week of Sept. 14 through 22 Days of Caring week.
The Goldsboro Fire Department Honor Guard will post and retrieve the colors.
The Center Stage Theatre Encore Performers under the direction of John Stutts, will provide entertainment. Encore member Bobby Boyd will sing the national anthem.
Emily Peacock will be the featured speaker. She is the recipient of the 2006 Wayne County Award for Volunteer Service and the 2006 North Carolina Medallion Award.
The Wayne County Chapter of the American Red Cross will provide coffee and Krispy Kreme will provide doughnuts.
During the opening ceremony, there will be a table set up where those attending can find more information about the event and volunteer for a project.
Days of Caring is a county-wide effort to help local agencies. It's sponsored by United Way of Wayne County and coordinated by Volunteer Wayne/RSVP. Hundreds of volunteers across the county, along with many civic groups and other organizations are expected to participate.
There will be several projects this year including a building blitz by Habitat for Humanity, several food and supply drives, pet supply drives and adoptions, Meals on Wheels deliveries and more.
One business helping with Habitat for Humanity's building blitz will be the management team from Strickland Insurance. They will be taking hammers and nails to the construction site Sept. 21 to build a home. Also, Strickland employees will prepare meals for building blitz volunteers that day.
In addition to helping build a home, Strickland employees are collecting pillowcases, T-shirts, ink and iron-on transfers for Seymour Johnson Air Force Base's REST Pillowcase and Infant T-shirt project.
Employee Activities Committee member Vicki Terrell explained that the project gives deployed military members pillowcases with their family's photo on it and also gives family members pillowcases with their deployed loved one's photo on it. And the project gives children T-Shirts with their loved one's photo on it.
This will be Strickland's second year of participating in Days of Caring. Last year the company purchased supplies for hurricane survival kits for senior citizens and employees assembled 100 of the kits, said Cathy Graham, human resource director.
"We had a ton of volunteers," she said. "Employees came in to help assemble the kits and we had to limit the number of kits they could do so there would be enough for everyone to help with. If we had known we were going to have so many volunteers, we could have done 500 kits."
Ms. Graham said not only does Strickland participate in Days of Caring, but the employees do a community service project at least once a month.
"We will continue doing Days of Caring projects," she said. "It's great to help out our community. We feel like we've accomplished something and given back to the community."