Mormon Helping Hands Day renews California parks

FALLBROOK – Fallbrook members and friends of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints showed up in record numbers to fulfill their assignments for the May 8 Mormon Helping Hands Day. This annual event is an opportunity to provide service to their community. Service projects took place across the entire state of California focusing on renewing and beautifying city, county and state parks.

Four projects in Fallbrook and one in Rainbow had over 300 participants from the Fallbrook first, second and fifth wards and an additional 30 members from the Spanish ward.

At Live Oak Park, church members installed new hand rails along the upper trail and new fence for shade garden. They redesigned and replanted the shade garden, cleaned stream beds and the main tributary of Live Oak Creek, removed weeds, trimmed trees and cleaned trails.

At the Fallbrook Community Center, team members planted and landscaped large areas, removed debris along the creek bed, deep-cleaned the restrooms and kitchen, washed windows, and power washed tables and exercise mats.

At Don Dusault Park on Alturas, teams planted 100 plants, cleaned and weeded hillsides, removed dead debris and removed stumps.

On the Santa Margarita Equestrian Trail, the group cleared and groomed equestrian trails and the stream bed, weed whipped large areas and moved large rocks around the picnicking area.

At Rainbow Park, they re-striped the parking lot, painted the picnic pavilion, restrooms, and information kiosk besides doing general clean up and weeding.

When the work was done, everyone showed up for the delicious potluck picnic and agreed that Fallbrook is a very special place to live.