What was to be the sixth annual Serve Jeff City volunteer day Saturday was canceled due to weather concerns.
United Way of Central Missouri President Ann Bax said organizers of the event couldn't take a chance on it being cold and rainy, with many of the hundreds of volunteers set to be outside at locations including Memorial Park and Jefferson City Day Care.
Bax said this was the first time the event has ever been cancelled. She said cancelling everything, including scheduled indoor volunteer activities was "the best way to proceed."
She also added the decision was made after talking with site coordinators. It was agreed it would have been too difficult to try to shuffle around people on a case-by-case basis for the next day, given the 350 volunteers involved.
Rescheduling won't be as simple as moving every scheduled activity to another day, she said, because not every site will have a volunteer coordinator for any given day.
"We're not going to reschedule as a whole," she said. Instead, organizers will look at each location where volunteers had been set to go and reschedule "one at a time and see what works."
People who were already signed up to volunteer Saturday will be receiving further information, she said.
She said the big outdoor projects are being coordinated through the Jefferson City Parks and Recreation department, so she would not encourage people to reach out on their own to the department, for fear of overwhelming them.
However, Bax added, "we never turn down volunteers," and any interested people who didn't get a chance to sign up in time for Saturday can reach out to the United Way through its website.
Serve Jeff City is a partnership between the United Way of Central Missouri, Jefferson City Parks and Recreation, and the Jefferson City Area YMCA.
Events Saturday had been scheduled to kick-off with a pancake breakfast at McClung Park, sponsored by state Sen. Mike Kehoe, followed by volunteers dispersing to their various scheduled sites.
Volunteers had been set to do activities like plant trees, remove honeysuckle, pick up trash, move mulch, organize storage areas and clean medical equipment.