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Best Group Service Project
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Courtesy of Luis Palau Association

Best Group Service Project
We've got to do something, Randy Thomas thought as he stood in a dingy corridor of Beaumont Middle School in Portland, Oregon, watching downcast students shuffle by. "It was the looks on the kids' faces," says Thomas, the district's maintenance director. "They just weren't excited."

How could you blame them? Budget cuts had winnowed his staff from 26 to two. Stairwells and classroom walls were stained, faded, and peeling; weeds and grass had run wild outside.

Thomas approached the district bosses and his parish's pastor, and that summer, 1,200 volunteers from his church converged on Beaumont with rakes and paint. "I got there when school opened that year," Thomas recalls. "The kids were all shocked, saying, 'Who did this?'"

That was just the beginning. Thomas approached local evangelist Luis Palau, a Billy Graham protégé with connections to congregations throughout the city. With Palau's backing, Thomas's humble idea has blossomed into a citywide endeavor—called Season of Service—with five main targets: homelessness, the environment, public schools, hunger, and health.

Last year's six-month project mobilized 550 local churches, 68 nonprofit organizations and local businesses, and 27,000 volunteers to tackle 300 community projects.

The 2009 season is in full swing. "I've been around a long time, and I have to tell you," says Mayor Sam Adams, "this is very inspiring."

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I also very shocked about the 9/11 situations. The terorist dont have any place in the earth and the forever world . They all are not accepted by any people in the world. But I think it have been created by some great terrorist in your own world. First u have to comes up front of the people.

By Sk.Shahidul Islam from Bangladesh, on 09/14/2009

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