Amber Castro, left, and Brittany Alvarez paint a cement picnic bench. Volunteers and community members involved with La Puente's Relay for Life donate their Saturday as part of "Relay Gives Back" Community Work Day, to improve the park by painting and cleaning up several areas in the La Puente Park. July 20, 2013. (SGVN/Correspondent photo by Mike Mullen)
Alexis Maldonado, 10, paints a cement picnic bench. Volunteers and community members involved with La Puente's Relay for Life donate their Saturday as part of "Relay Gives Back" Community Work Day, to improve the park by painting and cleaning up several areas in the La Puente Park. July 20, 2013. (SGVN/Correspondent photo by Mike Mullen)
LA PUENTE - Residents and community members were all smiles as they spent a sunny Saturday morning at La Puente Park.
A couple of dozen people were happy to be volunteering their time in the Relay Gives Back Community Work Day to spruce up the park.
"I thought it was good to help out, and this is a cool park," said 14-year-old Brittney Wright of La Puente, who said she comes to the park regularly.
The event was a partnership with the Relay for Life of La Puente committee and event sponsor Sam's Club as a way to thank the city for the support.
"We wanted to do something to contribute to the city," said Relay for Life Chairman Jeff Lewis, and Mayor Pro Tem Violeta Lewis' husband. "We're going to try to do it annually, at least."
The volunteers consisting of relay participants, members of Sam's Club, La Puente Industry Kiwanis Club, the Sheriff's Youth Activities League and four council members helped paint faded park benches and red and blue curbs in the parking lot. They also picked up trash and some helped take down the old roof from the snack shack by the baseball fields.
A number of City Council members chose to give up their travel expenses and allocated those funds to replace the shack's roof.
"We wanted to keep the cost down, so we thought we would have volunteers take it down and get it ready for a (paid) contractor to re-roof it," said Mayor Charlie Klinakis.
"It worked out perfectly with the community work day."The council members said they would like to plan more similar projects throughout the city to "clean the face of the city" as Councilman Vince House said, and bring the community together.
"This is the largest park in the city," said Councilman Dan Holloway. "It's the center of the community."
Daniel Spriggs, 15 of La Puente was part of the family team called Team Emma and Jose Concar at the relay.
"It was good giving back to the community," he said.
April Hernandez added: "It's our home. We need to beautify it."
The 40-year-old longtime La Puente resident volunteered along with 7-year-old Anna Hernandez.
Violeta Lewis said the day "went fantastic."
"There was a good energy," she said.
Klinakis added, "You could see everyone working hard, but they were having a good time."
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