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Volunteers Prepare For Love Oakdale
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Mother and daughter Sandy and Erin Robison add some color to this mural during Love Oakdale on Sept. 29, 2012. The two joined the Oakdale High art department in the effort. The project was one of several around the community. Similar efforts are due community wide this Saturday, May 4. - photo by Leader File Photo

More than 20 projects are going to be on the list when volunteers gather for Love Oakdale on Saturday, May 4.

“What we did this year, a little different than in September when we did the last one,” explained coordinator Mike Hancock, “was when we formed our event planning team, we touched base with all service clubs and said ‘Come up with your own project, we will help you with it’ – we wanted them to think of their own project, something that means something to them.”

Hancock said the idea worked well, with clubs all bringing ideas to the table of what needs to be done to clean up, beautify and basically, ‘Love Oakdale’ during a day of service.

“This year a lot of the groups have come up with their own projects, which has increased the number of projects and I think will increase the number of participants,” Hancock explained, noting that clubs can also recruit their own members to help, along with traditional community volunteers. Hancock said each service club that chose a project also had to designate a project manager.

All the volunteers and project managers will gather at Wood Park to start the day at 8 a.m. Saturday, with a brief meeting planned to go over the various projects and to divide the volunteers up into their specific work groups.

“Every project has a project leader and, after some paperwork, everyone goes out to their project site,” said Hancock. “After about four or five hours, we will meet back at Wood Park in the afternoon for a barbecue, hot dogs, hamburgers.”

Hancock said it will be a “typical Love Oakdale day,” with the idea to make the community a better place to live by giving back. One particular project he is excited about is the painting of a mural at the tunnel under the railroad tracks at the end of Ash Avenue.

“It’s a real eyesore, it gets graffiti, trash,” he said.

But the goal for the Love Oakdale crew working on that project will be to clean the area and beautify the tunnel, with the painting of the Oakdale High School Mustang mascot in the tunnel, with a horse on each side, one running ‘up’ the hill through the tunnel and one painted as running ‘down’ the hill.

“They will paint inside and outside and the high school art class is going to paint the Mustang horses on the tunnel,” he said.

Also due for some beautification is the sound wall along F Street/Highway 108 heading eastbound from Riverbank, the Vineyards subdivision sound wall prior to Willowood will be painted over to discourage graffiti.

“There are a number of neat projects,” he said.

This past Saturday, April 27, was a ‘Love’ event in many neighboring cities but Hancock said with Relay For Life and a car show already going on, they opted to wait a week for the Oakdale event.

This Saturday, he added, will also be the Burchell Hill 12th annual neighborhood Garage Sale.