Across many areas of Folsom you’ll find revitalized landscaping, fresh coats of paint and a local food bank warehouse stocked with non-perishable foods once again. These examples and more are all part of last month’s 10th Annual Community Service Day, an event deemed a great success by organizers and the city of Folsom after all of the numbers were tallied.
Last week, Folsom Community Service Day Chair Justin Raithel stood before Folsom City Council and a full-chamber to present the final figures from Folsom’s most recent day of service, figured that Raithel noted were record breaking to those of previous years.
When it’s all said and done, all of the figures add up to one common trait. That trait is that the community comes out in force when it comes to giving back and helping their city shine. Here’s a quick look at the figures that made that happen this year”
As it celebrated its 10th consecutive year, the latest edition of Folsom’s Community Service Day welcomed a total of 1,902 volunteers. These volunteers took part in completing 105 different projects citywide, from beautifying local parks and schools in need to painting, cleaning books at the library and everything in between. At the end of the day, those volunteers worked a collaborative 7,608 volunteer hours.
In addition to the citywide projects in various public spaces, many took part in the neighbors helping seniors portion of the event. This is where volunteers help local seniors with various tasks, they otherwise may not be able to do due to health limitations or limited resources. From gutter cleaning to weed pulling, deck repairs and more a total of 71 different projects were completed for local seniors this year.
“We try to focus on seniors that have outside needs for these projects, items in the yard, getting their homes ready for winter and such,” Raithel explained. “This year we set new records here as well with 71 projects completed. We even did a handicapped ramp again.”
Just days before Community Service Day, the Twin Lakes Food Bank announced its warehouse was empty. The community wide food drive helped with that problem this year. While the food bank still has more shelves to fill as the year goes on, they certainly don’t have bare shelves any longer as 28 tons of non-perishable food was donated by residents and picked up across the city by a fleet of volunteers who brought it back to the food bank to another mass group that sorted it and prepped it for storage and future distribution to those in need.
Community Service Day 2023 also held additional donation drives for various items. Throughout the day a total of 35 bikes were collected, 99 purses, over 1,000 toys were donated, 400 pairs of eyeglasses, 45 bags of yarn and fabric, two heaping truck-loads of pet shelter supplies were donated and 438 letters were written to members of our military over season, many which also received special care packages.
While some may say they gave a share of blood, sweat and tears as they volunteered to help this year, there were others that donated blood, literally. The onsite blood drive hosted by Vitalant collected 12-pints of blood outside Lakeside Church during the morning. With an ongoing nationwide blood shortage, Folsom’s contribution will be much appreciated.
2023 was a record year for community sponsorship of the event. Raithel pointed out that the event garnered over $114,00 in sponsorship this year between fiscal sponsorship and the sponsorship of goods and services that help with the organization, marketing and operation of the high-profile single day event.
“This event wouldn’t be possible without sponsorship and this year we had a record amount of sponsorship to support the event,” said Raithel. “We are thankful for each and every one of them.”
Intel Corporation and Dignity Health topped the list of sponsors for 2023 as the event Presenting Sponsors, contributing at least $15,000 each. The next level sponsors, known as Visionary Sponsors, contributed $10,000 each this year and included Lakeside Church, Folsom Times, Style Media and Lennar Homes.
Leader sponsors ($5000) included the Church of the Latter Day Saints, Rotary of Folsom, Folsom Telegraph. Partner sponsors ($3000) were Kaiser Permanente, Habitat for Humanity, Kikkoman, Elliot Homes, Dokken Engineering, Winco Foods and American Logowear.
Good Neighbor sponsors ($1500) included American River Ace Hardware, Choose Folsom, Safe Credit Union, Big Wave Coffee House, Cynsational Aesthetics and the Sierra Marlins Swim Team.
The 10th anniversary Folsom Community Service Day logo was created by Folsom artist Brian Wallace. The logo was utilized on the event t-shirts as well as a commemorative coin that was given out at the event.
“I really want to thank the City of Folsom for their support of this event, along with our sponsors that make it possible, Lakeside Church for hosting us again to kick it off on the day of the event, the list goes on,” said Raithel. “This was another great year and we’re ready for number 11, we’ll be kicking off the planning for that soon.”