In Norton, Laurel Gress of Beth El Congregation picked up trash in a park.
In Akron, Cheryl Kline of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church sewed dresses for children in a Third World country.
In Bath Township, Sana Haider of the Madinah Project baked cookies for families suffering through a medical crisis.
They were among some 180 volunteers who fanned out across the Akron area Sunday like so many individual threads weaving a communal fabric of compassion and good will.
Each year, members of several local faith-based organizations — Jews, Catholics, Protestants, Muslims — donate their time for Mitzvah Day, choosing from a catalog of some 15 charitable projects in need of attention.
“What else are we on God’s green Earth for?” said Nan Bartlett of St. Paul’s, where a group of women were turning brightly colored pillowcases into summer dresses for little girls in Haiti, an impoverished island country the church has embraced for more than 30 years.
Parishioners have built three school buildings and recently finished a church, but also delight in being able to reach out on a personal level. Bartlett said she can only imagine what it’s like for a youngster usually dressed in rags to be treated to a pretty outfit.
“They’re easy to make, they’re fun to make, and everybody can be involved,” she said, noting volunteers who were responsible for pinning pockets and appliques onto the fabric while others operated the sewing machines.
Mitzvah means “commandment” in Hebrew and is commonly translated as a good deed. The annual service day started with Jewish congregations, but other faiths eagerly joined when an invitation was extended in 2003.
They were all represented at the Akron-Canton Foodbank, where Jim Levin of Temple Israel led a group of 32 volunteers in sorting through donated food that will find its way to the tables of hundreds of area families. They checked expiration dates, looked for damaged cans and compared product numbers to recall lists.
“It’s such a great thing to be a part of,” he said.
Elsewhere, volunteers were gardening at the Battered Women’s Shelter, weeding at the Hospice of Visiting Nurse Service, cleaning at Safe Landing, painting at the office of Habitat for Humanity and tying handmade blankets for Akron Children’s Hospital patients.
At Temple Israel in Bath Township, sweet baking smells led to a group of volunteers huddled in the kitchen, where Carol Friedman was coordinating efforts to produce more than 300 cookies for the guests of the Ronald McDonald House of Akron.
The overnight residence allows parents to remain near their hospitalized children, so the cookies can be frozen and brought out as a daily treat, Friedman said.
The bakers included moms and dads who chose the project because their youngsters could get a taste of kindness and generosity.
“Our 4-year-old son, we’ve been wanting to get him involved in volunteering so that’s why we came,” said Rebecca Lieb of Beth El Congregation. Meanwhile, at Silver Creek Metro Park in Norton 10 miles away, volunteers fanned out along a new cross-country running course that will be opening in the fall, looking for any debris on the former farmland.
Summit Metro Parks purchased some 600 acres next to the existing park off Medina Line Road a few years ago so it could offer a venue for scholastic and regional collegiate meets as well as another option for local walkers.
Nick Sopko, a Metro Parks groundskeeper, offered volunteers gloves, trash bags, buckets, water and snacks and pointed them in the direction of seven looping paths of mowed lawn.
The edge of the course is marked by overgrowth that could be hiding “old farm garbage,” he said.
Laurel Gress of Guilford Township walked several yards before spotting a piece of twisted metal pipe. She wrestled it out from a patch of vines and slipped it into her bag.
She walked a bit more before guessing there wasn’t much trash to be found, but said it’s never a waste to spend time in service to one’s community.
“I think it’s a good way to make people feel like they’re doing some good,” Gress said.
Other organizations that participated in Mitzvah Day included Unitarian Universalist Church of Akron, First Congregational Church of Akron, Peninsula United Methodist Church, Islamic Society of Akron and Kent, Church of Our Savior, St. Hilary Church, Akron First Seventh-Day Adventist Church, National Alliance on Mental Illness, Temple Israel of Canton and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Paula Schleis can be reached at 330-996-3741 or pschleis@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/paulaschleis.