Jasper resident Mahdi McWhorter made the trip over to Colony Saturday to pitch in with fellow Desperation Church members to clean up the area around the town’s gym and recreation area. McWhorter, who runs a lawn care business in Jasper, said it’s common for him and other church members to be somewhere out in the community at least one Saturday each month, helping residents in need.

COLONY — It’ll take more than one day to get Colony’s municipal gymnasium back in usable shape — but fortunately for the town, the volunteers who showed up Saturday to help clean up the place say they’ll soon be back for a second round.

“This was kind of our first step,” said executive pastor Cody Miller, who worked alongside about 20 church volunteers Saturday to roll up their sleeves and start sprucing things up. “We wanted to sort of prep the grounds by cleaning up the outside area before we turned our attention to the inside of the gym. We’re going back next month to do more of the indoor work; painting and things like that.”

Part of “First Saturday Serve,” the church’s ongoing monthly outreach program that brings volunteers out for a good cause on the first Saturday of every month, this week’s Colony cleanup was just one among a handful of projectS the church had going Saturday.

“This week, we also served at Cullman High School; we served the Cullman Police Department breakfast; we had a group giving out groceries at the Hanceville Housing Authority, and we were serving with The Link of Cullman County do some on-site work with them,” Miller explained.

In all, Miller estimated church volunteers assisted more than 830 local residents Saturday. It’s a big number; one bolstered especially by the consolidated effort that goes into the once-yearly global service day coordinated by ARC — the Association of Related Churches. “We’re a member of ARC, and July 11 was this year’s ARC global serve day,” said Miller. “So there were literally churches doing things like this all over the world.”

Even when nearly everyone else had called it a day as the sun rose high in the sky and the humidity and temperatures surged, Mahdi McWhorter stuck around to reach as much of the property with his leaf blower as he could. McWhorter, who runs a lawn care business and attends the Desperation campus near his Jasper home, said he’s gotten into the habit of going wherever he’s called.

“I’m here, well, because it’s Saturday,” he joked. “My pastor asked me to come up, so here I am. We have a serve day like this about once a month, with a lot of where we go each time depending on the need. Somebody calls; they have a need, and it’s like ‘Hey — let’s have a serve day!’”

Earlene Johnson didn’t need to know too much about the organized effort in order to come out, rake in hand, to pitch in. Now in her eighties, the longtime Colony resident and former 12-year mayor likely has forgotten more about Colony than most people will ever know. Wearing a face mask and raking debris from sidewalks and the parking lot in the hot sun, she paused to chat about the passing of time in her town.

“I’m 83 now,” she said, standing in a coveted spot of shade outside the gym. “Back when they decided to integrate Colony into the other schools, they tore the old Colony school down and built this. But, over the years, the upkeep has been off and on. I try to come out here and do what I can. I heard they were having a cleanup day, which is needed, so I just thought I’d come and see.”

Miller said you don’t have to be a Desperation member in order to get involved in the church’s well-coordinated Saturday outreach activities, which have grown since the church’s founding 10 years ago into an organized, year-round slate of volunteer efforts.

“Anybody is welcome to attend and serve with us, whether in or outside of our church,” he said. “We use a mobile app called the Serve app, and anyone who has it can set the church to ‘Desperation’ and find out what we’re doing on First Saturday Serve. There are always multiple service opportunities. We might plan around the weather, depending on the time of year, but it’s rain or shine, and there’s always something to do.”