WAYNESBORO–St. Mary’s Episcopal Church of Waynesboro is living up to its pledge to “be as good a neighbor as we can be.”
John Poniske added that members of the church and other volunteers gathered last fall to begin restoring the grounds at Waynesboro Post Office on Main Street.
“Maxine Beck, a member of the former Waynesboro Garden Club, asked me if I would be willing to help her with the post office beds.” The club, which oversaw the work for many years, disbanded due to the inability to recruit new members and the challenge of the task. “I said our church would probably be willing to sponsor the ongoing project.”
“I talked with members of our small church and 10 people volunteered to help,” according to Poniske. “Our members, along with Maxine and four or five other women, cleaned out the beds and dug up bulbs, which hadn’t been tended for over five years. The flowers were very crowded.
“We came away with 16 boxes of Iris corms. We did as much as we could and waited until this spring to finish cleaning up the beds. We delineated the bricks … cleaned them up … some were buried. It looks much better now,” he noted.
Mulch was added during a workday that was rained out. “The St. Mary’s people came back on Sunday and finished with the cleanup. This fall we will finish digging up the rest of the crowded Iris and come away with more corms,” Poniske said. “The ones we dug up in the fall were given away in sacks of 30 at the recent Earth Day celebration sponsored by The Institute. They all went to a good home.”
The church already is involved in several other community projects, Poniske said. Its annual rummage sale, held for more than 20 years, features many items “inexpensively priced to benefit members of the community who need them most,” he added. Leftover clothing is given to Waynesboro Community and Human Services.
Last October the church hosted a service organization display at Memorial Park. “It was an opportunity for the groups to explain their services, recruit volunteers and let people know they exist. We invited over 50 and nearly 30 set up tables. We had a clown who did magic and juggling and a live band,” according to Poniske. “We hope to do it again in September.”
The church also sponsors a spaghetti dinner on election days.
“St. Mary’s recently sponsored a Christian Unity and Reconciliation Service to be held at Rotary Park that was moved to Evangelical Lutheran Church due to weather. It was very well attended. We had speakers from four churches and the new community and human services director Morgan Hovermale,” Poniske said.
