They said ‘YES’ to service

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Joe Faehnle, who will be
a senior at Perrysburg high school, paints a door, Friday, July 18, 2014, in Rossford. Around ten kids
were painting the home as part of the YES Project, part of church missions locally. (Photo: J.D.
Pooley/Sentinel-Tribune)

More than 230 people stepped forward to volunteer for the Toledo YES (Youth Elect Service) Project last
week. The group included 100 high school-age students as well as 35 college students supplemented with
100 adult volunteers.
They all said "yes" to step up and provide service to the community with YES, a non-profit
organization first launched in 1983.
Father Mark Davis, pastor of St. Aloysius Parish in Bowling Green and guest speaker at this year’s YES
Project, said, "It is hard to underestimate the spiritual power of helping somebody, interacting
with people who are in need, and making a difference their life. I think that the YES Project provides
young people with a real experience of God through service and community."
This year’s Project was hosted by St. Rose Catholic Parish and School in Perrysburg.
Over the course of three work days, volunteers assisted at 11 sites throughout Lucas and Wood counties by
scraping, priming, painting, gardening, and doing other physical service projects. Small groups of
between 10 and 18 volunteers worked at each site, building relationships with the homeowners.
"Being able to get to know the homeowners on a personal level motivated me to work harder to finish
the tasks at hand. The relationships we built were just as important as the work we did," said
Kelly Blakely, a sophomore at Bowling Green State University.
Blakely has volunteered for three years with YES.
In the evenings, the volunteers participated in social and spiritual programming at the St. Rose campus.
The project concluded on Saturday evening with a closing dinner with homeowners and a closing Mass
celebrated by St. Rose Parish associate pastor Father Jeff Walker.
"YES has helped me to recognize the need in my own community and the value of incorporating service
into my life," said another three-year volunteer Grace Beham, a senior at St. Ursula Academy in
Toledo.
According to officials of the organization, the mission of the YES Project is two-fold: First, to teach
high school students the value of volunteering and encourage them to strengthen and develop a
relationship with God and second, to bring the love of Christ and his healing presence to those served.

More information regarding the Toledo YES Project can be found at www.ToledoYesProject.org.

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