The Community Impact Team spent the rainy weekend of April 27 and 28 volunteering around the community to help residents that are in need of help. The team worked on projects such as minor home repairs, raking and bagging leaves for seniors, community garden prep and more. Photos provided.

By Megan Kelley
Clarkston News Editor
mkelley@mihomepaper.com
INDEPENDENCE TWP. — Last month, The Community Impact Team held the first of its two annual volunteer weekends to help local residents in need.
The Community Impact Team has been doing work and promoting volunteerism in the Clarkston community for about 14 years and was originally called My Habitat Clarkston before being rebranded this past year.
“Twice a year we have a big event that kind of is, if you will, a capstone or a way to showcase what we’re doing and help a lot of people and it’s called Community Impact Weekend. We’ve been running those for about 14 years. If you ever see the yellow shirts out or see any yellow signs around town, that’s what it’s all about,” said Russ Milano, Executive Director.
The Community Impact team focuses on three main kinds of service projects throughout the community; home repairs, yard clean up and food access.
“There are a number of churches, businesses, other nonprofit organizations, food banks, that we work with here locally to offer a hand up to our neighbors who need that. That can be senior citizens. That can be veterans. That can be widows. That can be single parent families or low income families and we help them with three basic things: one is home repairs, two is cleaning up their yards and the exterior of their home and the third one is getting access to nutritious food. So, we’re trying to help the people in the community who need it and help them with those things that they need most,” Milano said.
This year, 475 volunteers from all age groups participated across 35 different projects in the Clarkston area.
“We really wanted to do two things: we want to help a lot of families in our community who are struggling right now and the second is to promote volunteerism across all age groups.” Milano said. “We have projects where we’ve got people as young as five and six-years-old helping paint rocks for a hope garden for kids who are struggling with mental illness, all the way up to senior citizens who are doing some work over at Church of the Resurrection to help make some things for Disaster Relief at Work. So, every age can participate but we want to give a chance for people who want to volunteer an easy way to volunteer twice a year.”
Though The Community Impact Team focuses on the two big Community Impact Weekends a year, they strive to make a lasting impact on the community.
“The homeowners we’re helping, we’re not just going to go over and fix their roof. We’re trying to help them change the direction of their lives. So, the roof repair may be the reason they call us, but as we’re talking and we find out that they need food, maybe they’ve been stuck in a downward spiral because they lost their job or are buried by medical expenses or something has happened in their life, and we’re trying to figure out how to help and get them on the course in the right direction, which means we’re going to be there after this weekend. We’re going to help them this weekend to get started but we’re going to be there throughout the summer and fall helping them move in the direction that they want to go in their lives,” said Milano.
The next Community Impact Weekend is set for the first week of November.
If you would like to get involved or if you are in need of help, visit The Community Impact Team’s website at www.thecommunityimpactteam.org.