It’s hard to find some good things in the midst of all the negative stories plaguing our newsreels. To combat this, we want to shine some light on the positive and dedicate a day to give back to our community. Last Wednesday for our 5th Annual Service Day, our leadership team tackled two service projects: assisting the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall with meal prep and a Jordan River cleanup through the Hogle Zoo.
St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall
We started our Day of Service at the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall located in downtown Salt Lake City. St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall’s mission is to provide meals to those hungry in our community. With the help of volunteers, they incredibly served over 440,000 meals in 2022! The St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall serves two hot meals for those in need from their center daily. In addition to their own location, they also cater two meals daily for six other Homeless Service Providers in the area. This is an average over 2,000 meals a day!
After we got all washed up and aprons on, the on-staff chefs guided us to our stations. There was plenty of vegetable chopping for salads and stir fry, apple washing and distributing, egg cracking for breakfasts, and prepping finished meals for serving. We learned while there that their goal is to prepare enough food for a couple days in advance, and to do so, they depend fully on volunteers to assist the on-staff chefs.
To achieve their goal by reducing those hungry in our community, the St. Vincent de Paul Dining Hall is always looking for more volunteers. Learn more about the different volunteer opportunities on their website.
Hogle Zoo Conservation Jordan River Cleanup
The second half of our Day of Service was spent on the Jordan River with the Hogle Zoo Conservation. The Jordan River flows from Utah Lake to the Great Salt Lake, passing by our city, and collecting trash along the way. For our Day of Service, we decided to dedicate some of our time to assist in cleaning up this important river system and the habitats it provides.
Before we set sail, our guide briefed us on what we may encounter on the river and directions for our cleanup. She also shared some insight that stuck with us. Conservation isn’t just about places far away, but what we can also do locally. On that note, we then one by one pushed our canoes in to the river.
Battling gentle currents, spiders, and bushes, we collected as much trash that we could fit into our canoes safely. Early into the float, some friendly competition started amongst us as who could collect the most trash. We filled our canoes with cups, bags, bottles, and other debris, including a bicycle. One group managed to pull an e-scooter from the river believe it or not! It was an experience full of laughs, hard work, and making a difference on the Jordan River.
Hogle Zoo Conservation offers many different cleanup events for the Jordan River! If you want to help cleanup the Jordan River, check out Hogle Zoo’s Jordan River events.
Why We Love Our Annual Day of Service
Our 5th Annual Day of Service not only allows us to service the community that we are a part of, but grow together as a team. This day marks an important one for us full of giving and learning about how we can better ourselves and the community. If you’re curious about one of our previous service days, read a blog post about it here.
