Celebrate Mt. Pleasant Report 6/16/2010
It was a pleasant day at Mount Pleasant, by Sally Luzietti
See a gallery from the event HERE.The day began with the signing in of volunteers and residents, choosing of orange shirts or hats, and gathering of everyone together for prayer. The tone was set for the day.
Almost instantly groups of workers were formed and sent off to various areas to begin their tasks. Some to scrap and seal the cracks in the basketball court, some to build retaining walls, some to dig planting beds, some to clean the grounds, some to refresh the flower bed and mural that had been created last year, some to clear and build a baseball field and some to turn a sprinkler circle into an aquarium wonderland.
It is hot and the work is hard; even the machines designed to cut through the sod can’t make a dent in the hard, dry earth. It is people power that slices through the earth, preparing the planting beds and digging out the areas to be filled with clay for the baseball bases, one shovel full at a time. It’s an amazingly orchestrated event; trucks and a bob cat moving smoothly among large groups of people.Truly the theme of the day is joy and it feels like a family event; children and adults working, talking and laughing together. Conversation flows easily between the participants. One woman was overheard saying, “You know what I see today? I see one color and it’s orange.”
Suddenly the call goes out, “The Rock Cats are here! The Rock Cats are here!” All the children flock to the Rock Cats as they walk to the corner of the baseball field. The kids are all lined up waiting patiently to receive some free equipment – baseballs, bats, gloves, wiffle balls and bats. The Rock Cats are wonderful. They sign autographs and put on a small baseball clinic for the kids. While the clinic is going on, the work continues on the baseball diamond.
This baseball field will see lots of use this summer. Jose, who lives in Mount Pleasant as well as works for the housing authority, is planning on using this wonderful field this summer for a baseball league. He’s very excited and very appreciative of all that’s happening here.
Another one of the highlights of the day had to be the great cook-out and show put on by Big L. The children were very excited to see their Big L friends. It is amazing how fast food can disappear when people have been working hard.
One of the hard workers responded to a request for his quote for the day by saying, “Well it’s the middle of the day and people have been working hard but there is no quit in people’s step, no quit in their smile. I think the joy is just increasing, the weather is getting nicer and the work is continuing; relationships are continuing. The children are here and it just feels as good as it did when we got here. In fact, it feels even better.”
Work continued into the afternoon. One little boy told a friend that he could do this every day because he liked helping. Finally the day ended as it began with people praying and thanking God for all that had been done and all that would be done. And before the dust had settled and the workers were completely off the baseball field, the kids already had a game going. The day was wonderful, a most pleasant day.
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