On Saturday, more than 1,000 members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints turned out at Canyon Country Park and Castaic Lake to help with cleanup and repair projects around the parks.

Equipped with paint bruches, rollers, buckets, shovels and brooms, the volunteers spent all morning painting several miles of curb, painting bathrooms and planting trees.

Wearing bright yellow “Mormon Helping Hands” vests, the volunteers worked quickly and got a lot done, given their large numbers.

“Service is something that we within the Church of Jesus Christ are doing continually for each other, the community and around the world,” said Lisa Larsen, one of the volunteer directors of the Santa Clarita project. “It means even more to us when we can make such a meaningful contribution and save the state of California millions by beautifying the parks and are being used more than ever with the current economic crisis.”

Mormon congregations statewide participated in this day of volunteering. It is estimated thatn more than 750,000 Latter-day Saints worked at more than 10,000 city, county and state parks, desert regions and coastline to work on this beautification project, contributing to approximately 3 million hours of labor to the state.

“This service provide by the members of the Mormon Church has saved the County of Los Angeles and the City of Santa Clarita thousands of dollars and helped beautify the parks for our citizens to enjoy,” said Santa Clarita City Councilman Bob Kellar, who visited both work locations.