Several Vicksburg area agencies received a helping hand Saturday as about 200 AmeriCorps/NCCC Corps members fanned out through the community to provide a day of service.

The work was part of a Global Youth Service Day program, a youth service and civic action event that celebrates, expands and sustains the capacity of all youth ages 5 to 25 and their communities to thrive by working together for the common good.

“This is our national day of service,” said Melanie Harris, an AmeriCorps volunteer from Fayetteville, Ga., as she helped children at a bounce house at the Vicksburg Community Garden’s Kids Garden Month program off U.S. 61 South.

“We have two teams here today for the Vicksburg Garden,” she said. “We have some people pulling weeds over there (pointing to the garden), planting things; some people painting and some people supervising children.”

Besides the community garden, AmeriCorps members worked at Good Shepherd Community Center, the YMCA Warner Tully Camp, Cary Christian Center, Vicksburg Salvation Army building on Mission 66 and the Vicksburg Housing/Julius Community Garden on Roosevelt Avenue.

At Good Shepherd, workers from two different teams that recently returned from working in Texas and Florida were painting, mixing concrete and filling holes in the center’s parking lot, doing yard work and performing other maintenance work.

“It’s great to meet all these young people from all over the country and to share our Vicksburg story with them,” the Rev. Tommy Miller, Good Shepherd’s director, said.

“They are an inspiration. Many of them had never been to the south before, and they’re learning what a great part of the country it is. They are a good group of young people, and they’re work is appreciated. You have to admire them. Not many young people would give a year of their life to do volunteer work.”