Joyful Day of Service

October 26, 2019 was selected as this year’s International Day of Service for the Caribbean. Volunteers and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints wore yellow Helping Hands vests as they gave service in a variety of projects throughout eight Caribbean countries of the Barbados Bridgetown Mission.

A joyful International Day of Service began in Grenada at the St. George Hospital, with a performance by Isabel and Madilyn Morgan delighting those visiting the hospital.

Volunteers from Grenada, who visited young patients at the hospital, described their experience after serving as having “full hearts and tearful smiles to say goodbye.” Other volunteers prayed and cried with a paralyzed man who had no family. In St. Lucia, two projects were completed with cleaning a widow’s yard and preparing and delivering hot meals, feeding the hungry and serving as the Savior would serve. In Basse Terre, Guadeloupe, volunteers worked in shifts to comb hair, apply makeup and sing songs with the elderly.

Helping Hands volunteers in St. Maarten cleaned and washed classrooms in a special needs school. Community soccer fields and locker rooms were cleaned in Abymes, Guadeloupe. St. Vincent volunteers participated in clean-up projects in both Georgetown and Kingston. Helping Hands in Barbados cleaned and cleared lots and yards in the Oistins and Black Rock communities.

The Helping Hands program was established in 1998, and since then hundreds of thousands of volunteers have donated millions of hours of service to their communities. The program started in South America but has since spread to nearly every corner of the world. It is most recognized by the trademark yellow shirts and vests helping people whose lives have been affected by natural disasters, emergencies or people and communities that just need help.