Well before the holiday season of giving, Freedom Church members were in Kennesaw, Acworth and nearby communities helping their neighbors.
Last summer, members held the second annual Paint the Town Orange event with six days of projects that included home landscaping, feeding the homeless, beautifying school land, activities with residents in senior living communities and more.
“The goal is to have as many church members as possible, engaged in the community,” said Todd Lollis, the operations pastor who oversees local outreach.
A total of 279 volunteers completed 24 projects in 1,028 hours. They collected 2,550 pounds of non-perishable food in the event food drive.
The volunteer work has an impact on the people served, Lollis said.
“We were able to help a family that has experienced difficult times,” he said. “The husband had been in a car accident and broke his leg in a couple of places and had been out of work. They needed help with landscape and had a huge hill that needed mowing.
“The family was very grateful,” Lollis said. “It was something, they couldn’t have accomplished on their own.”
The Paint the Town Orange event had 100 more volunteers than it’s inaugural year in 2018. The community venture has revealed individuals are drawn to do different activities, Lollis added.
“People react to different things,” he said. “We learned to diversify the projects. Some want to do manual labor. For some hunger resonates so they would want to do activities with the homeless.”
For homeless outreach, volunteers provided meals at the MUST Ministries Loaves and Fishes Community Kitchen.
Paint the Town Orange activities also included recreation. Some volunteers played kickball with children and adults with developmental and physical disabilities through the Horizon League.
“It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year,” Lollis said.
The Paint the Town Orange name is inspired by colors in the church logos. “We want to have a huge impact on the community,” Lollis said. “We created a brand to help encapsulate that by having the volunteers wearing orange T-shirts and show the community that we love and care about them.”
Who’s doing good? Each Sunday, we write about a deserving individual, charity events such as fun-runs, volunteer projects and other community gatherings that benefit a good cause. To suggest an event or person for us to cover, contact us at ajc.doinggood@gmail.com
About the Author
