LDS church members plan Wawawai work day

Mormons from all over the Palouse will travel to Wawawaii Park Saturday for a day of volunteer work. Members of the church from Troy, Potlatch, Pullman, Moscow, Rosalia and Colfax, up to 60 people, are expected to participate.

They will tackle four basic maintenance projects at the county park along the Snake River. Spreading gravel around camp site fire pits, replacing sections of split rail fences, staining picnic tables and cleaning in general.

Volunteer leader Harold Wilkinson said the group will be in step with a national service day Sept. 11 by the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints.

Wilkinson said they originally planned for Sept. 11, but county parks rangers could not be on that site that day, so they rescheduled for Saturday.

The spirit behind the LDS service day is to give to the community on the date of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in 2001.

“I called Tim Myers [director of county parks] up and said, ‘We are considering this service. Is there anything we can do to help the county out?’” Wilkinson said.

Wilkinson, who is an elder with the LDS church in Colfax, said they heard the county parks needed help after reading a story in the Gazette about a county park bridge replaced by much-needed volunteers.

“People who are doing it are doing it with a loving heart,” Wilkinson said.

During the stiff budget cuts faced by most of the county departments last year, the parks system cut out one and a half seasonal employees.

They also trimmed back to operating on a budget that can only be maintained temporarily; the department has put equipment repairs and other park maintenance on hold until it receives better funding.

Because of all this, the parks department has been asking for volunteer help for several months.

“You can get so much work done with that many people,” said park ranger Dave Mahan who will spend time setting up Wawawai Park for the group. Among prep tasks will be setting out supplies for staining the picnic tables and providing enough rakes for the group.