Love Your Town volunteer Paul Namakadre, who is the pastor of Narromine and Dubbo Adventist churches.
Community care in action
Love Your Town Griffith—a neighbourhood and creek clean-up held on November 30 and December 1—has launched a new wave of community service by Seventh-day Adventists in the South New South Wales region.
The first of what is planned to be a series of “Love Your Town” events, the initiative brought together 30–40 Adventist volunteers to serve their local neighbourhood in Griffith, which is located in the Riverina region of New South Wales.
“We started with the creek clean-up, and we pulled all the rubbish out of there and split it into scrap metal and dump waste,” explained regional church leader Kyle Morrison. “Then we headed into the neighbourhood across from the Adventist church. The team had already identified which houses needed the most help. We did a bunch of trimming of trees and cutting the grass and then just carting all the rubbish out of the place.”
From one property alone, volunteers removed around four trailer-loads of general waste and two or three trailer-loads of garden waste. Several neighbouring homes also received help with clearing and tidying.
The impact on residents was immediate. One homeowner, overwhelmed by the support, told the team, “Thank you guys, we are grateful. From the bottom of our hearts, we have never had so much help in all our lives, and this is so good to see there’s still good people in this world.”
