Community volunteers for annual day of caring

LAWTON, OK (TNN) - Friday, the Lawton community came together to complete countless projects for the 25th annual David Hegwood Day of Caring.

Crews from businesses and organization across town were painting, doing carpentry work and doing things like landscaping and planting flowers. The annual day of caring, put on by the United Way of Southwest Oklahoma, offers the chance to give back to the organizations that do so much for everyone here in southwest Oklahoma.

"There is no way these projects would get done without these volunteers. There are so many volunteers that come out for this event, the David Hegwood Day of Caring. It’s a really amazing thing to see the community come out and you see all the nonprofits around town, buzzing with people, and it’s just fun to see and it’s amazing to see what we can do for the community,” said Nicole Bucher with Light Alive Designs & Marketing, who participated in the event.

The crews of workers, many of whom are businesses and clubs across Lawton, were spread out around the town to help wherever necessary. That included work at Hearts that Care Health Clinic, where our 7NEWS crew offered a helping hand to dispose of expired prescription pills.

"We don’t have a lot of volunteers so for us to take our time and sit down and do all of this is hours and hours of work and when we need to be doing something else for the clinic. So, this is extremely helpful to us,” said Dr. Rosemary Bellino.

Hearts That Care Health Clinic is a free medical clinic in Lawton and Dr. Bellino said none of what they do would be possible without the United Way.

"We’d like to say thank you to the United Way, they have been such a tremendous partner for us. The United Way Day of Caring has been extremely helpful to us. Last year, if you can look at this clinic, these were bare walls. They came in and mutted the entire walls and put the decorative finish on them which has been extremely helpful to us, it made a huge difference for this clinic. Our patients deserve to come to a place that looks nice,” Bellino said.

In total, there were well over 100 volunteers from places like Goodyear, PSO, Cosmetics Specialty Labs and many more local businesses.

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