These children and their dad are building a new train table for young guests at Ronald McDonald House to play with. Other volunteers at this site made breakfast for resident guests, while still others planted flowers around the grounds.
These are just a few of the more than 130 people who joined us for Spring into Action 2025.
Our annual volunteer day puts community members to work in support of the missions of our community partners. Sister Bonnie said that the volunteers at Sisters of St. Joseph Neighborhood Center “did a week’s worth of work in three hours.”
Volunteers included groups from local businesses and from our high school partners. We were proud to see five Domenica Scholarship students participating!
Besides meeting immediate needs, volunteers learn about how the nonprofit organization improves quality of life for underserved Camden residents. One volunteer noted on their evaluation form that they enjoyed “learning about different ways I can help throughout the year.”
Here’s some of what we accomplished together:
- At Cathedral Kitchen, we made 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and colored hundreds of placemats.
- At St. Joseph’s Carpenter Society, we built and stained 10 benches for new homeowners. The girls pictured here are preparing materials for maintenance lab classes in which SJCS teaches community members how to maintain their homes.
- At St. Anthony’s School, we built, organized, and unpacked materials for the school’s new STEM lab; we also organized and sorted sweatshirts for all Catholic Partnership School students.
- At Sisters of St Joseph Neighborhood Center, we weeded and replenished all 19 garden beds; sorted canned goods and readied the food pantry for this week’s distribution; and organized the community clothing closet.
- At Joseph’s House, we cleaned, talked with guests, and prepared and served lunch.
- At Holy Name School, we painted and repaired the church area, prepared graduation gowns, and filled Easter eggs.
- At LUCY Outreach, we organized the food pantry, organized the basement equipment, assembled 750 (!) Easter eggs, showed the plants some love, and baked treats. Another task was painting the alumni computer lab, pictured here.
Community partners expressed their gratitude, as did many volunteers. Several volunteers said they appreciated how well organized the time was. Some stressed the value of working together with family members and other volunteers.
We’ll leave the last word with Nick, an enthusiastic volunteer: “What an amazing day! Incredible what the Domenica Foundation does to lift lives in Camden City! Your commitment to the community is truly inspiring. We can absolutely see that it’s making a difference.”