Teamwork makes the Dream Center work
Volunteers from Life. Church South Oklahoma City recently joined volunteers from the Oklahoma City Dream Center for a day of community service projects.
The projects — ranging from painting and trash pickup to serving lunch at a local nursing home — focused on the neighborhood around the center, 2212 SW 55, and a local school, Santa Fe South Charter School.
The Jan. 28 volunteer workday followed a brief ceremony in which Life. Church leaders presented the Dream Center with a $12,000 grant to help the center continue its mission to aid people in the surrounding community.
Jon Mays, pastor of Life.Church South Oklahoma City life groups-life missions, said the Dream Center has become adept at building relationships with people in need, with an ultimate goal of offering tangible aid, spiritual renewal and restoration.
“We chose them because of their ability to establish relationships, which has led to restoration,” Mays said of Dream Center leaders.
“We’re all about the local church — it’s going to be the hope of the world.”
Community events
About 75 Life.Church South volunteers joined Dream Center volunteers to host adopt-a-block events at Hillcrest Apartments, Country Club Apartments, Potomac House Apartments and the Northside residential neighborhood. Volunteers handed out fliers, picked up trash on the street and talked to people in the neighborhood.
At the Country Club Apartments and at a Dream Center Super Saturday event held the same day, the volunteers offered inflatables for children to play on. About 500 hot dogs and burgers were served to residents and volunteers.
At nearby Grace Living Center, volunteers played bingo with senior citizens. Volunteers also served as personal shoppers for the monthly food pantry event at the Dream Center, with 140 families receiving food.
Meanwhile, volunteers repainted shelving in the Dream Center’s clothing closet and scraped paint from the building’s exterior and prepped it for repainting. Also, a children’s church area and gymnasium upstairs storage area were cleaned up and reorganized.
Some volunteers worked at Santa Fe South Charter School to clean the basketball bleachers and repaint them, along with some interior walls.