Over 100 volunteers showed up in the Santa Clarita City Hall parking lot Saturday morning to offer helping hands on various projects for the city and for nonprofit organizations in the community, according to Mayor Cameron Smyth.   As part of the city’s annual Make a Difference Day, volunteers ages 5 and up started the morning with a complimentary breakfast, and then Smyth gave his thanks to everyone there before letting them loose.  “This is going a little bit slower than we had anticipated,” Symth said to the group of volunteers who were signing in and getting ready to work. “But that is a good thing, because last year, we only had nine projects slated for Make a Difference Day. This year, we have more than doubled that with over 20 different opportunities to volunteer and give back.”  Smyth added that he was encouraged by the number of young people who got up early on a Saturday morning to do volunteer work.   “My kids are still at home asleep, so I don’t know what that says about me,” he said with a chuckle. “But, guys, the fact that you’re here wanting to make a difference is, again, a great testament to why Santa Clarita is such an amazing city.”  Santa Clarita Mayor Cameron Smyth speaks to volunteers Saturday morning in the Santa Clarita City Hall parking lot during the 2024 Make a Difference Day. Trisha Anas/The Signal Volunteers signed up beforehand to work on projects around the community. Those projects included painting posts on city paseos, spreading mulch to create a new pathway at the Newhall Community Center, cleaning the kitchen and food pantry at the Salvation Army, assembling cabinets for the Boys and Girls Club, nurturing therapy animals for Straightening Reins, moving furniture and painting walls at Bridge to Home and more.  According to Kay Kaminski, vice president of ARTree, a nonprofit arts center in Newhall, she and about 12 volunteers were going to be “beautifying” ARTree’s courtyard by painting windows and also painting rocks to go in the landscape beds on site.   Volunteer Melanie Parson paints a window Saturday morning at the ARTree Community Arts Center in Newhall to help beautify the space during the 2024 Make a Difference Day. Trisha Anas/The Signal “Our courtyard is a little dull looking,” she said Saturday morning at City Hall before heading out with her volunteers to do the work. “We need to liven it up with some color.”  Kaminski anticipated working well into the afternoon.   Volunteer Raux Deveraux paints flowers on a rock Saturday morning at the ARTree Community Arts Center in Newhall to help beautify one of the walkways at the site during the 2024 Make a Difference Day. Trisha Anas/The Signal According to David Escoto, circulation supervisor at the Old Town Newhall Library, his five volunteers were going to be providing what he called some “TLC” for the library.  “They’re going to be wiping down some of the surfaces and some of the kids’ toys that kids come in and play with during Storytime and during our Little Explorers program,” Escoto said. “They’re also going to be shelf blocking. It’s pretty much like pushing the books all the way to the edge so that they’re nice and presentable.”  Escoto added that he’d probably also have volunteers doing craft preparations for the Newhall branch’s Halloween parade that’s set to take place between 3:30 and 4:30 p.m. on Thursday in front of the library on Main Street.   Later in the morning at Tesoro Adobe Historic Park in Valencia, just under a dozen volunteers gathered in the parking lot and awaited instructions from David Mattice, facility supervisor for the city of Santa Clarita.  “So, today we’re painting these light poles,” he said. “We’re going to take off the light pole base covers that cover the bolts to protect them, we’re going use this little brush to clean away some of the debris, and then we’re going to make sure we get some paint on the bottom base. We have some poles that extend and we’re going to see how far we can get. We can’t get all the way to the top, so we’ll come back and finish it up with extension ladders.”  David Mattice, facility supervisor for the city of Santa Clarita, tapes up the base of a light pole before repainted it with volunteers Saturday morning at Tesoro Adobe Historic Park in Valencia during the 2024 Make a Difference Day. Trisha Anas/The Signal One of the volunteers at Tesoro Adobe, Karen Kuhlman of Palmdale, said she found out about Make a Difference Day online and signed up her family, including her sister, her mom and her dad.  “Growing up, my sister and I used to always do volunteer stuff,” she said. “Being working professionals, we kind of lost that a little bit in our lives. So, I ended up just doing a search because I was like, ‘You know what? We’ve been home bodies for too much of our weekends. Is there something we could do again?’”  Kuhlman’s family and others got to work on the light poles and began transforming them within 20 minutes.  Volunteer Rae Kuhlman repaints a light post Saturday morning at Tesoro Adobe Historic Park in Valencia during the 2024 Make a Difference Day. Trisha Anas/The Signal Make a Difference Day brought out people young and old, from high school students looking to complete mandatory volunteer hours to those who hoped to instill solid values in their children.  Cherrie Collins and her family from Saugus were volunteering at the city’s Transit Maintenance Facility on Constellation Road in Valencia. She, her husband and their two kids also took part in the River Rally Cleanup and Environmental Expo last month in the Santa Clara River between the Bouquet Canyon Road and McBean Parkway bridges. Collins and her husband want their kids to learn the meaning of give and take.  “I want them to give back to the community,” Collins said. “I want them to know that we live in a community, and it’s not about just themselves and video games.”  That spirit seemed to be going around, with volunteers eager to give of themselves.  “Volunteerism,” Smyth said, “is something that is a key component of Santa Clarita.”  He added that tens of thousands of volunteers have worked hundreds of thousands of hours to give back to the city since incorporation in 1987. It’s this kind of work that, he said, truly does make a difference.  David Mattice, facility supervisor of the city of Santa Clarita, pours paint into a bucket for volunteers Saturday morning at Tesoro Adobe Historic Park in Valencia during the 2024 Make a Difference Day. Trisha Anas/The Signal Volunteers Tetyana Bilanova-Isles, left, and her son, Zotye Isles, paint rocks Saturday morning at the ARTree Community Arts Center in Newhall during the 2024 Make a Difference Day. Trisha Anas/The Signal The post Volunteers set out to make a difference in the community  appeared first on Santa Clarita Valley Signal.