Volunteer Day

Volunteer Day participants

The Lakewood community’s giving tradition is renewed each April, on a Saturday, when hundreds of volunteers fan out across the city to participate in Volunteer Day projects. Numerous community groups mobilize to help Lakewood residents in need. They’re a diverse collection of community groups, kids, and adults who roll up their sleeves and pitch in at work sites throughout the city.

Suggest a Volunteer Day project location site.

The city is the overall organizer and helps volunteer groups focus their energies. Crews begin hammering away around 8 a.m. and work into the early afternoon before gathering for a BBQ lunch made possible by community sponsors.

Volunteers clear overgrown front and backyards, fill trash cans with debris, and paint garages and the sides of houses.

"Today we just wanted to give back to the community,” said a teen volunteer from Mayfair High School. “The community supports our school and our sports programs, so this is a way we can give back by helping people do work they can't do for themselves. For me, there's a lot satisfaction just helping people by doing this volunteer service.”

"It's just a nice feeling,” says another volunteer, “helping someone out, cleaning up a house or yard if they can't do it. It's satisfying, just like when you fix up your own house."

Volunteer Day’s service of painting, completing yard projects and making other needed exterior improvements at homes and facilities throughout the city is part of Lakewood’s tradition of volunteering that goes back to the city’s founding in the early 1950s. It was volunteers who established the Lakewood Youth Sports program that continues to thrive today. For years, Lakewood residents have heeded the call to help others. They show their concern for the community and neighbors by volunteering.

To ask about helping, sign up through the volunteer online form or call the Burns Community Center: 562-925-7512.