More than 8,000 turn out for Day of Caring

More than 8,000 volunteers planted, scrubbed, painted and more at area nonprofit agencies, schools and neighborhoods on Friday as part of the Trident United Way’s 12th annual Day of Caring.

Many praised the day’s cooler weather and low humidity, which Trident United Way volunteer coordinator Sally Burnett jokingly claimed to have provided.

“I’ve been out here when it was 98 degrees, and I’ve done this in the rain,” said veteran volunteer David Kizer, who was planting a garden at Sangaree Middle School with about a dozen volunteers from Santee Cooper. “We couldn’t have asked for a nicer day.”

More than 140 companies and service organizations worked on more than 400-plus projects throughout the area. The largest group was the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command, with more than 2,000 volunteers. Some of the youngest workers were from the University School of the Lowcountry, which involved its entire third- through eighth-grade student body.

Individuals were invited to volunteer at the Ronald McDonald House, where there was even a dog wearing a red volunteer T-shirt, Burnett said.

“What strikes me is what a well-oiled machine this thing has become,” United Way spokesman Barry Waldman said. “We have groups who say, ‘We’ve been at the same place for the last four years,’ and they know exactly what to do and what the organization needs.”

Burnett said another focus has become sustainability.

“That’s been the conversation more and more each year,” she said. “Volunteers don’t want to go out and plant a plant and come back the next week and it’s withered and died. They want to do a project that they can jump start and hand over.”

Such was the case at Fort Dorchester Elementary School, where Trident Health System volunteers planted a butterfly garden and built raised beds where students will grow vegetables.

“This is an ongoing project,” said Principal Harolyn Hess. “It’s not just something where someone comes in for the Day of Caring and makes something look nice. This will involve our students for the rest of the year.”

One of the day’s bigger projects was at Chicora School of Communications, where more than 100 jobs were tackled by 112 workers from KapStone paper mill, the Cummins Corp., Charleston County, the Passport Center and The Post and Courier.

“I was out there and there were red shirts in every single room,” Waldman said.

The groups spruced up the school garden and grounds, moved a piano, built shelves, hung teaching aids, inventoried books, cleaned out surplus supplies and organized paperwork.

“This is s-o-o important,” said Katy Simison, the school’s magnet program coordinator. “As a public school we don’t have the capacity to get this done.” For example, she said, just one of the jobs — hanging a word wall — would take a teacher two days. Eight of the walls were hung Friday.

‘It’s really meaningful for the kids to see people coming out, caring about them and their school,’ she said.

Bo Petersen contributed to this story. Reach Brenda Rindge at 937-5713 or on Facebook.