On Saturday, September 26, 902 area residents took part in Volunteer Sioux Falls, participating in over 36 volunteer service projects that helped the area's elderly, children, animals, the homeless, the environment, people with special needs and much more! Together, these 902 people gave a combined total of 2,194 hours to service.
 
This is the second year for Volunteer Sioux Falls, with 450 people serving last year.

The event's organizer, The HELP!Line Center, started the day with a Community Rally at the Empire Mall where 43 local volunteers were presented with the President's Call To Service Award, an honor given only to volunteers who have served more than 4,000 hours in their lifetime. Collectively, the honorees have given over 351,990 hours of volunteer time. The federal government values a volunteer hour at $14.27, meaning these volunteers have had a collective $5,022,897 impact on South Dakota. 

After the rally, volunteers dressed in neon yellow shirts, fanned out across the Sioux Empire to make a difference in the community they share. 

Junior League Promotes Healthy Eating
Ambassador Suzanne Veenis
Suzanne and her Junior League friends undertook a project to promote healthy eating by baking and supplying over 270 zucchini bread loafs to people served by places such as the Center for Active Generations and Family Connection. The group spent weeks before the event collecting, shredding and freezing zucchini. Each finished loaf was carefully wrapped with a ribbon, and a recipe for the bread was attached before it was delivered to hungry people across Sioux Falls.

 
A Happier Home For Shelter Clients
Ambassador Carmen Toft 
Carmen and the members of Sioux Falls Up & Coming spent their time during Volunteer Sioux Falls at My Sister Friends House, helping make the house a happier home for the women and children who live there. The 24 volunteers helped by securing a wooden playground border with Rebar, painting three rooms, priming bathroom walls and fixing a shower drain, trimming trees, planting Hostas, repairing a gate lock, cleaning window wells, mowing, clearing trash from the yard, spraying for weeds and much more!

 

 

 

Community Pride in Pettigrew Heights
Ambassador Nate Helling & Daniel Prendable
Co-Ambassadors Nate Helling of the Sioux Falls Seminary and Daniel Prendable of Volunteers of America partnered with the City of Sioux Falls for a litter clean up in the Pettigrew Heights neighborhood. Over 150 volunteers turned out to help, picking up over 3,580 pounds of trash. Volunteers also hung bags with community resource information on every door in the Pettigrew Heights Neighborhood, and broke for lunch hosted by First Christian Church. Those who helped in the effort included community residents, youth served by Volunteers of America, Augustana College students and workers from the Ellis & Eastern Railroad.

 

Helping Immigrants Make A New Home, Life
Ambassador Allen Kjesbo and Sarah Yoder 
The Point Is To Serve Church, lead by Co-Ambassadors Allen Kjesbo and Sarah Yoder, worked in the weeks leading up to Volunteer Sioux Falls to collect welcome box items for refugees and immigrants. The boxes included such necessities as wash cloths, towels and razors. The congregants then spent an entire church service sorting and assembling the baskets. On Sept. 26, the church hosted a free rummage sale for the clients of the Lutheran Social Services Refugee and Immigration Center. They gave away such items as strollers, winter clothes, pots, pans, and much more. The church also made and served lunch to the 150 people who came to the free sale.

 

 

 

Wishing Children Well
Ambassador Alan Wieskamp 
Ambassador Alan Wieskamp and the team at TSP Inc. designed, built and installed a wishing well for the new Make-A-Wish Foundation building in Sioux Falls. The wishing well, made of cement, stone and wood, sits in the building's rock bed, surrounded by plants. Assembling and installing the wishing well by hand took four TSP team members several hours to complete as they covered the structure stone by stone.

 

Volunteers Transform Stage
Ambassador Sarah Jennings 
Ambassador Sarah Jennings of AARP hosted  a Volunteer Sioux Falls project in partnership with the Sioux Empire Community Theatre, exposing area individuals and families to the fun of theater by having them build and paint sets for an upcoming show. Volunteers arrived to the newly renovated Orpheum and received a quick orientation about how the stage will be transformed from a blank stage to a two-story brownstone in the next three weeks for the play I Hate Hamlet. Volunteers were shown the set plans and then put to work creating stones out of foam, laying the stones on what will eventually be a two-story fireplace, and building walls. The help of the volunteers gave the Sioux Empire Community Theater a jump start on a very complex set.

 

 Packing Food Boxes For Seniors, With Care
Ambassador Melissa Beck
What can 41 volunteers do in just 4 hours? Ambassador Melissa Beck and her team of Good Samaritan Society employees proved that is just the right amount of time to make a difference for thousands of low-income seniors across South Dakota. Melissa and her volunteers spent Volunteer Sioux Falls at the Community Food Bank packing food commodity boxes for seniors. By the time they were done, the team had filled 1,635 boxes, showing many hands make a huge impact for those in need.

 

Cleaning Up For A Cause 
Ambassador Stacy Thomsen
Ambassador Stacy Thomsen of Sanford USD Medical Center teamed up with her network of family, friends and co-workers to make a difference for 4 local people who have MS by helping them with house cleaning and yard work. Over 20 volunteers gave about 60 combined hours raking, moving rock, trimming trees, cleaning gutters and loading a dumpster with branches, twigs and leaves. A representative of the MS Society said of the day, "My clients are not able to tackle these physical jobs alone; they were so grateful for the help they received."

 

Making the Girl Scouts Shine  

Ambassador Rachel Gage
The Girl Scouts Dakota Horizons had a goal of cleaning and organizing both  storage facilities located at their main headquarters in Sioux Falls. In addition to organizing boxes of donated items that were taking up space in both facilities, other goals included constructing and installing shelving units, reorganizing and taking inventory of existing stock and supplies, recycling and "free-cycling" unused items, and cleaning out the infamous "Spider Garage", home to a number of insects and arachnids! With the hard work of volunteers from the University of Sioux Falls women's volleyball teams, Lloyd Companies, the Girl Scouts and others, all of the primary goals were achieved! 

 

Bear-ells of Love For Kids 
Ambassador Anelis Coscioni 
The South Sioux Kiwanis spent Volunteer Sioux Falls transforming the Family Visitation Center into Bear Headquarters! The bears serve as a special friend to each child who visits the center regularly to meet with a non-custodial parent in a supervised setting. The Kiwanis group set out to collect 300 such bears to donate to the center, but with the help of places like Brandon Valley High School and First PREMIER Bank, they ended up with 1,100 Safety Bears. In addition, an artist created two wonderful, kid-friendly art displays, and the Kiwanis transformed a blank office area into a fun waiting room for kids. Still more Kiwanis members helped with outdoor cleanup.

 

Two Projects, One Bank, Hundreds Impacted
Ambassador Brian Wittkop 
Brian teamed up with his co-workers for two projects in one special day. One small group spent the morning at the home of a Workers on Wheels client. She needed help with home winterization, getting ready for the cold South Dakota winds. The volunteers cleaned and put plastic over her windows, plus put insulation around her pipes to keep her toilet from freezing. That night, about 25 HSBC workers gathered to cook and serve a meal at the Salvation Army. They served 261 meals to men, women and children of tacos, beans and rice, plus nachos and fruit. In addition, HSBC decorated the tables in a festive fashion and gave away hair brushes to all who attended.

 

Home Depot Helps Families Connect
Ambassador Jeremy Welch 
The team at Home Depot cleaned up the yard of Family Connection on Minnesota Avenue. Volunteers fixed some maintenance issues at the houses including two bathroom sinks and a railing on a stairway. Home Depot also helped remove 2,380 pounds of yard waste from the property. They removed trees, weeds, and other materials. Amy Pokela, the director of Family Connection, said the following the day. "Without their help this would not have gotten done. Driving past the houses on Sunday morning was such a thrill. To see everything neat and clean was such a sense of pride for the organization."

 

 

New Siding & Many New Friends
Ambassador Lisa Vande Voort 
Ambassador Lisa Vande Voort of Architecture Inc. and her co-workers, plus employees of Sioux Falls Construction, spent the day on a variety of home maintenance projects for an elderly area woman. Pearl, a client of Workers on Wheels, needed her yard mowed and weeded, windows washed, fence repaired, shed re-sided, doors fixed, hedge and Lilac bushes trimmed, plus much more. A total of 21 volunteers did an amazing job in just four hours! Lisa also involved her Soroptimist group in Volunteer Sioux Falls. The women spend the afternoon of Sept. 26 baking and freezing meals for the families who stay at the Ronald McDonald house.

 

Helping Senior Facilities Shine 
Ambassador Ryan Tysdal
Ryan and a team of friends and family, decided to make a difference for the elderly living at Good Samaritan Society facilities for their Volunteer Sioux Falls project. The team started painting at 8 am, with brushes flying.  Just a few hours later, the halls they painted looked fantastic. The maintenance staff at Good Samaritan said Ryan's team saved him an entire

 

 

"Lion" In the Sun 
Ambassador Jody Bymers 
The Downtown Lions took 11 McCrossan Boys Ranch youth canoeing for a couple of hours and then grilled hamburgers for lunch. The sunny, calm weather lent itself perfectly to paddling Wall Lake. The group also played bean bag games and tossed the football around with the boys. A few of the youth even went fishing, with one boy getting a little wet while trying to watch a turtle. The Downtown Lions have an on-going mentor relationship with the boys at McCrossan Ranch, and spend time with them as positive adult role models doing many different activites throughout the year.

 

And Hundreds More Hands! 
These 17 Ambassadors also inspired many other area groups and individuals to create their own service projects for Volunteer Sioux Falls. Some of those projects include:

• Avera McKennan Hospital hosted a Soup Drive. Avera volunteers collected food for the Mobile Food Pantry.
• Sioux Falls Synergy played baseball with kids from Children's Care Hospital & School at the Miracle Field.
• MetaBank helped with maintenance and painting projects at Youth Enrichment Services.
• The USF Wrestling Team helped at the Furniture Mission.
• The Augie wrestlers helped at the Women's History Club building.
• The Sioux Falls School District administrative team made blankets for refugees.
• SALSA spent the day helpling animals at Second Chance Rescue Center.
• Globe University staff and students volunteered at the Downtown Harvest Festival.
• The Morning Optimists group set up for the Bright Start Mom Swap.
• The Pre-K to 5 kids at Prairie Hills Covenant Church made baked goods for the Ronald McDonald House.
• The Great Plains Zoo benefited from the help of Koch Hazard Architects, Qwest employees, East Side Lutheran Church and others as they decorated for Zoo Boo.
• Daybreak Kiwanis painted at the Sertoma Butterfly House.
• Knitters, lead by Stephanie Becker, spent the day making items to donate.
• A Spanish class from the Center for Active Generations painted at Presentation Sisters Hispanic Ministry.
• A family helped at Good Samaritan Society with various projects.
• A group of friends cleaned and organized toys at Children's Home Society.
• NorthWestern Energy helped with a variety of projects at Children's Inn.
• In addition, on Friday kids at the Multi-Cultural Center's Native Club made holiday cards for elderly people, plus kids at Edison Middle School made table centerpieces for a local shelter.

Watch the Volunteer Sioux Falls video!

 

Thank you to our Volunteer Sioux Falls Sponsors!

 

 

Community Investors             Supporters                            In-Kind Sponsors

Kouri Insurance                        Cadwell Sanford Deibert       Sunshine Foods

Raven Industries                                 & Garry                        The Empire Mall

Sioux Falls Midtown                  NorthWestern Energy            Coca-Cola Bottling

       Sertoma