As part of their participation in the Seventh-day Adventist Church’s Global Youth Day (GYD), Adventist young people from the province of Nakhon Ratchasima in Thailand organized a tree-planting activity at Nakhon Ratchasima Zoo, also known as Korat Zoo.
The group planted 100 pink trumpet tree seedlings inside the zoo. The seedlings were given to them by the Forest Nursery Center of Nakhon Ratchasima Royal Forest Department. The department highly recommends these trees. According to them, these trees are perfect for parks and zoo landscaping. More than 60 young people participated in the initiative, including a handful of kids.
This is not their first time organizing a community service event in that zoo. In 2017, the group volunteered to clean the zoo to celebrate World Environment Day. Now, in 2022, the #CareTeamKorat was back to do more community service for the zoo and the animals living there.
“This group of young professionals are individuals studying and working in Thailand,” leaders said. “Their goal is to deploy a group to help their community in any possible way that they can.”
#CareTeamKorat facilitated various services for the community, such as a medical mission, free lab tests, massages, and grocery items and food packs.
“Seventh-day Adventists are animal and nature lovers because we believe that nature and creation speak about the love of God,” Adventist youth leader John Vincent Carriedo said. “Giving care to the animals by giving them a pleasant environment is what we should be doing more often. This kind of community service also demonstrates how the children of God — kids and adults alike — should unite.”
A day before the tree-planting activity, the group donated 20 reams of bond paper, 100 boxes of face masks, and hundreds of rolls of toilet paper to a local school for the blind. They also donated several boxes of milk, hundreds of boxes of face masks, and hundreds of rolls of toilet paper to an orphanage.
After the success of their tree-planting activity, the group received a call from the Nakhon Ratchasima Royal Forest Department asking them if they could also extend their community service to the Forest Nursery Center. This opened more opportunities for the group to serve the community and to extend compassion to the city, leaders reported.
The group is very much involved in outreach activities. Currently, they are planning to volunteer as teachers in the school for the blind in their city. They plan to extend free classes to teach children every Sunday. The group is praying that this program will open additional ministry opportunities.
The original version of this story was posted by the Southern Asia-Pacific Division.
