Maple Valley Rotary marks a significant milestone of service this month as it celebrates the 10th anniversary of its participation in Make A Difference Day which is now in its 20th year nationally.

In 2001, Bill Woodcock, then the president of the Maple Valley Rotary, was in search of a new project for the club.

For years and years, Woodcock explained, rotary members would go out to the Cedar River and clean up along the shore line, picking up trash.

Then King County declared the river clean, thanks in part to the efforts of rotary.

“I asked our community service chair, Lori Guillfoyle, who happened to be the community center director (for ideas),” Woodcock said. “She came back with Make A Difference Day and it was just a fantastic idea.”

Woodcock then approached the city manager at the time, John Starbard, and from there the city was on board.

“It took off from there,” Woodcock said. “By the time we got closer (to the event), there were 18 or 20 people on the committee. We had this swell of involvement.”

With Make A Difference Day observed in late October and the first official and fully organized event in Maple Valley happened less than two months after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C., Woodcock believes that had a small part in the appeal of doing something to make the community better as folks productively channeled their emotions following the attacks.

“I was in awe of all of the people who came together,” Woodcock said. “This was in my year as president and I had a lot of lofty goals. This was one of them, to start a huge, recognizable community event.”

Victoria Laise Jonas was on the committee that first year as she had been participating on her own in the event for four years previously.

“The rotary asked the community and the community stepped up without question,” Jonas said.

This year there will be hundreds of volunteers participating in a wide variety of projects in Maple Valley and Black Diamond.

Jonas explained that the City Council — she is Maple Valley’s deputy mayor — was working on a project to improve what many consider the crown jewel of the city.

“Our park, Lake Wilderness Park, which is 114 acres, we don’t have one single bike rack,” Jonas said. “So, we have allocated $1,000 to get a couple of bike racks (installed). That’s going to be our council project.”

Scott Cookman, chair of rotary’s Make a Difference Day committee, said there are a number of organizations involved this year in addition to the rotary such as Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, school groups, churches and more.

“We’re going to do some beautification to the community center here in Maple Valley,” Cookman said. “We’re going to help the community center fund the replacement of their storage roof and also provide a new playground area after the involvement of the new roundabout that’s being put in. We’re actually helping to provide the lawn itself as well as the soil to give the children a brand new, level place to play.

In addition, volunteers will paint lines on the basketball court at the Greater Maple Valley Community Center, “so it’s truly a half court.”

A group headed up by a local eighth grader is going to do some landscape projects at Rock Creek Elementary and the Green Team at Glacier Park Elementary will be putting in an irrigation system in their garden, Cookman said, as well as adding a covered recycling area.

“Glacier Park Elementary, they use water capture, they don’t use any city water,” Cookman said. “So, we’re going to get them rain barrels to use to gather re-captured water. That allows them to spend money on other things.”

Another group will work on the traffic triangle at the state Route 18 interchange “to really help perk of the first image” people have of Maple Valley when they enter the city.

“We’re also working with the Maple Valley Historical Society taking care of their benches and providing some painting,” Cookman said. “Then there will be a general cleanup of the Lake Wilderness Park area itself.”

To kick off the day there is a breakfast at both community centers in Maple Valley and Black Diamond where rotarians cook up and serve food to volunteers prior to heading out to work on projects around both communities.

“It’s pretty spectacular,” Jonas said. “Before you know it the whole community center is filled with volunteers. We want people to come to the breakfast. It’s a good way to develop a sense of community.”

For anyone who wants to volunteer, Cookman and Jonas encourage those folks to come to the breakfast, even if they don’t have a project in mind to work on because that’s where they can sign up for projects.

“We will have a list of different projects for different capabilities,” Jonas said. “It’s important to have a diversity of projects.”

Make A Difference Day highlights a growing spirit of volunteerism and community-oriented attitudes in Maple Valley residents and Cookman, who is new to the area, attributes that to the small town feel.

Cookman, a retired Air Force veteran, said Maple Valley reminds him of the kind of community he found at military bases.

“Being of such a small size … more people are interconnected with each other throughout the city,” he said. “Therefore they all want to contribute to their city.”

Jonas said she often hears people say “that in Maple Valley there’s a sense of community.”

“That’s very comforting,” she said. “I think that brings a lot of people back to their youth. In Maple Valley I think anything is possible.”

Woodcock said he attributes the kind of service-oriented spirit found here to the people who live here.

“It hasn’t always been that way,” he said. “I think in Maple Valley what we’ve successfully done, No. 1, (is) we have driver-type personalities… that are willing to roll up their sleeves and get the work done. No. 2, to get over our differences to work together for the greater good, that’s of huge importance and that’s why we’ve been so successful in building this.”