Giving back to the community through community service is at the heart of the work of Grassroots. In June, Grassroots partnered with STARRY and Mentor Waco to build flower beds for some of the residents we have built houses for. This event was part of STARRY’s FatherFest Activities. We had participants from the Starry Fatherfest, as well as some youth volunteers from Mentor Waco. STARRY is an organization that seeks to nurture children, strengthen families, and restore hope through counseling family support. Mentor Waco, founded and directed by Jeremy Davis, is a mentoring group that was started to help foster and support young boys’ development, mainly from the East Waco community. The group started their day with a hearty breakfast and lots of water for the heat. Then they were given some instructions and general training on landscaping by Mike Stone and then divided into teams. The teams were dispersed to three of our new homeowners in North and South Waco. Each team’s job was to create and to build a flower bed, which included determining the size of the bed, figuring out where each flower would be planted in the bed, digging up the area to set the foundation, digging holes for the flowers, cutting and laying the tarp, then planting the flowers, filling the area with mulch and finally watering the flowers. It was a day of creative, fun, and collaborative work.
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