CHURCH HONORED FOR `SWAMP' WORK.

Byline: PATRICIA FARRELL AIDEM Staff Writer

VALENCIA - They accomplished in a day and for very little money what would have cost a Valencia school about $20,000 and taken some two years to finish.

And they had fun.

No question this crew of about 150 volunteers broke a sweat during the 10 grueling hours spent fixing the drainage for ``the swamp,'' a playing field at Rio Norte Junior High that was improperly graded and susceptible to flooding. But they relished their roles as members of a team working together to make a difference. ``I think it's important for everyone to volunteer,'' said Wade Reynolds, who organized the job. ``That's what makes a community a community.''

For their dedication, the team from Valencia United Methodist Church is honored today by USA Weekend magazine's Make a Difference Day program. The work at Rio Norte by this church, 500 members strong, was chosen as the top community project in the area served by the Daily News, which distributes USA Weekend in its Sunday editions.

``Wow!'' school Principal John Krinkel said Friday when he learned of the honor. ``They deserve it. They really deserve it.''

Reynolds helped coordinate Make A Difference Day projects for the church the two previous years - sprucing up Newhall Elementary School in 2003, then painting and making repairs at the Santa Clarita Valley Food Pantry in 2004.

Last fall, he toured Rio Norte with Krinkel in search of a project for his church's extraordinary crew of volunteers.

``It's actually a challenge finding a project big enough because we have so many people who want to help,'' Reynolds said. ``It's a tremendous thing and it's a great lesson for kids. It teaches them a passion for wanting to help.''

He and Krinkel walked around the 2-year-old school, where Reynolds' younger daughter is a student.

``We had an area of the school we called `the swamp,''' Krinkel said. ``It was turning into a lake because the grading was never right. Tall grass was growing; indigenous birds had taken over.''

Reynolds and company returned for Make a Difference Day, when volunteers across America gather to make their hometowns better places to live. An advance team had surveyed the field and designed the strategy to build a drainage system.

``They spent a good 10 hours with a backhoe, shovels, pipe and a lot of laborers,'' Krinkel said. ``They were digging and talking and laughing and digging and digging and digging.''Grown men threw dirt at each other, workers cracked jokes and kids pitched in - a real community coming together to help.

Krinkel said he had asked school district officials for two years to have the work done, but knew school dollars aren't easy to come by - not to mention the delays of wading through red tape. He estimated the project would have cost $20,000 and taken two years to propose, win approval, bid contracts and complete.

This offer of free labor was too much to pass up and he opted to forego some of the formalities that bog things down. ``It's better to ask for forgiveness rather than permission,'' he said with a chuckle.

pat.aidem(at)dailynews.com

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(ran in Valley edition) no caption (cover of USA Weekend magazine)