Relieving Burdens Through Service

Mauri Crandall knows that our greatest joy comes as we help others. So when planning an activity that would be involving approximately 100-200 women, she knew that it would be best to use that powerhouse of women to serve.

With this in mind, Mauri turned to JustServe.org to find local opportunities and projects. She says, “When we knew we wanted to do a service activity, we knew the best place to find different kinds of service in our area would be to search JustServe.org. It’s so easy to use!”

Two of the three projects that were worked on that evening were found through Just Serve — “Kits for Peace”, hygiene kits for the homeless, and “Dolls of Hope”, an on-going project making stuffed dolls and bears for refugee children.

Mauri's goal was to make 150 kits, 75 men’s kits and 75 women’s kits for Kits for Peace. "We met the 150 mark plus another 25 more kits with the extra items that were brought and donated by the women in our (congregation).” The kits were delivered to the New Hope Resource Center in downtown Puyallup by Diane Keinholz, who is an advocate for the homeless and works extensively with them in our local area.

86 stuffed bears were made for Dolls of Hope to be shipped to refugee camps.

Knowing the needs of a local charity, Step by Step in downtown Puyallup, a non-profit helping at-risk pregnant mothers and their babies, the women also cut and tied fleece quilts to donate.

JustServe.org is an invaluable resource to find local service opportunities. Just type in your area code and how many miles out you want to search for and a list of options will appear. You simply scroll through them and find the best fit for you, your group or family.

“In knowing that we would potentially have 100-200 sisters and young women serving, we would need activities that would be good for large groups, that would be doable in a 2-3 hour time frame, and could be done at the church building,” related Mauri. “When you find what service you want to do, you just contact the person who is the contact for that particular project and go from there.”

Mauri knows one of the best ways to overcome our own trials is to serve others. She had a vision and hope for the women in her local Relief Society, the largest women’s organization in the world, that as they served, “that their hearts and minds would be filled with peace, comfort and joy amidst the trials, struggles and challenges that they may be personally experiencing at the moment." She hoped that, "the realization that as they take the time to help someone else, somehow the Lord will bless them so that their own burdens won’t feel quite as heavy.”

For more information on Just Serve go to www.JustServe.org.