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Fight Day. Photo by David Caine
Youth in The Salvation Army’s Western Territory rose to the challenge of I’ll Fight Day 2012, putting social justice and servant evangelism into action.
I’ll Fight Day is an annual event, held the first Saturday in December, when The Salvation Army encourages young people to get a group together, choose a project and go into their community to serve. Worldwide participation, including the USA West, grows each year.
WARdrobe Army Apparel creates a special design for I’ll Fight Day that is used on posters and T-shirts to help promote and identify the event.
Youth and young adults at the Murrieta (Calif.) Corps provided blanket, jackets and vests to over 100 homeless people at a small park in Lake Elsinore. “It was an eye-opening experience for our young people,” said David Cain. “So much so that when a homeless man said how much he liked our ‘I’ll Fight’ T-shirt, one of our group gave him the one off his back.”
Elsewhere in the Western Territory, I’ll Fight Day activities included nursing home visits, neighborhood trash cleanup, caroling, volunteer bell ringing, cleaning local beaches, serving hot meals, corps clean-up projects, serving hot cocoa at community tree lighting festivals, and passing out cold weather necessities, such as hats and scarves, at a local bus stop.
The Renton (Wash.) Corps (Northwest Division) and the Ebeye (Marshall Islands) Corps (Hawaiian and Pacific Islands Division) participated in I’ll Fight Day for the first time this year. The Territorial Youth Department also participated, choosing to volunteer with corps clean-up and Christmas decorating at the San Pedro (Calif.) Temple Corps.
A complete list of this year’s I’ll Fight Day stories and photos are available on Saynetworks’ SayCause website under the “Stories” section (saynetwork.com/saycauseblog/our-stories).
To learn more about I’ll Fight Day, visit illfightday.com.
—Megan McQuade
