Faith groups, others joining hands to help neighbors in celebration of America's 250th

(RNS) — On Saturday (May 16) in Bakersfield, California, volunteers are planning a community festival, offering attendees food, haircuts and household goods.

“It’s in one of the most impoverished parts of our community,” said Wendell Vinson, president of CityServe International and co-senior pastor of an Assemblies of God megachurch in Bakersfield. “The church is really going to their neighborhood, and then we’re mobilizing churches from that neighborhood to really get to know their neighbors better.”

The event is one example of how nonprofits and volunteers are coming together for Good Neighbor Day America, a nationwide initiative on Saturday supported by America250, the Congress-created nonpartisan organization marking the 250th anniversary of the country. School and community beautification projects involving religious and secular volunteers are among the events expected to occur in more than 1,500 sites across the nation, accompanying a “kindness challenge,” an initiative that began in recent months to encourage small acts of kindness.

“We want to empower everyone to be a good neighbor and do good,” said Gabe Bahlhorn of Love Has No Limits, a secular charity that works in the public sector and with private organizations to support families in crisis. “People basically have been challenged to just do random acts of kindness, just randomly, bless somebody, buy their coffee, open the door for someone, tell them that you appreciate them — this is large and small.”

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The National Association of Evangelicals, the Assemblies of God, Love Has No Limits, and CityServe, a Christian organization that works with churches to help the people who live in their neighborhoods, are among the organizations encouraging community service on Saturday.

Vinson said the day will include churches working with other nonprofits and individuals of faith and no faith to help people in their neighborhoods.

Wendell and Lynda Vinson. (Photo courtesy of Canyon Hills Church)

“We like to invite non-Christians in because they have a heart for the community,” said Vinson. “They care about people that are hurting in the community, but it gives them also an opportunity to connect with Christians and to get to know people from the faith community.”

Vinson hopes Good Neighbor Day America will be a “catalytic event” that encourages more local involvement by churches and, with it, provides a different impression of what they do in their communities, he said.

“The church really can accomplish a lot more if we’ll lead with what we’re for,” he said. Sometimes, he added, “we’ve not led with what we’re for. We lead sometimes with what we’re against.”

In an announcement about Good Neighbor Day America, organizers noted some participants may be eligible for prizes — from two tickets to the FIFA World Cup Final to access to a Formula One box suite if they post on social media about their volunteerism.

“Every post is an entry, and every entry is proof that kindness is contagious,” stated an April 22 news release about the day.

Bahlhorn, an evangelical Christian, said the random prizes are an additional incentive to move people off their phones and into their neighborhoods.

Gabe Bahlhorn speaks at Greenville First Assembly Church in Greenville, S.C., in 2019. (Video screen grab)

“We want to be able to gamify doing good and not gamify doing bad,” he said.

Bahlhorn, whose organization also helps organize Good Neighbor Day events most Saturdays in May and November, said he hopes that the one-day event will lead participants to more neighborhood volunteerism in the future.

“The goal for us would be to kind of funnel this energy and this goodwill,” he said, “and begin to move them into a more ongoing action of doing that with greater frequency.”

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