Margie Bennet, a volunteer at Birthright, and her six-month-old daughter Evelyn Bennet, paint the outside of the building Birthright shares with the Centro Hispano at 204 W. 13th St. on Saturday, April 25, 2009.

KU students from a learning communities class paint the outside of the building Centro Hispano shares with Birthright at 204 W. 13th St. on Saturday as part of the Day of Caring.

Who doesn’t need a helping hand when it’s comes time to move — especially when it involves relocating 100 tons of recycled building materials?

That’s why the two dozen or so volunteers helping move, organize and tear down a roof for Habitat ReStore were so welcome for director Katherine “KH” Harris.

“It’s not like we are moving boxes of dishes; some of this stuff is awfully heavy,” she said.

The group was among the more than 350 volunteers in Lawrence who helped around town cleaning buildings, planting gardens and painting houses.

All the volunteering was part of a Day of Caring event, part of National Volunteer Week and organized by the Roger Hill Volunteer Center.

Over the past few weeks, Habitat ReStore has been moving from 800 Comet Lane to 708 Conn., where the location, space and layout is better, Harris said.

Among the helpers were Kansas University students Andrew Buchholz and Edwin Dunson, who tore down a roof at the store’s new home. “I just wanted to help out,” Buchholz said.

They weren’t the only KU students hard at work. At the corner of 13th and Kentucky streets, students were giving a face-lift to the office of Centro Hispano Resource Center and Birthright.

The building’s dull gray paint was being replaced with a cheery blue, trimmed in beige. The day before, employees with Payless Shoesource were scraping off paint and priming the house.

“It is wonderful for us to have people helping us out,” Centro Hispano director Lydia Leon said. “It gives a new fresh look to our agency and it makes it just a happy and comfortable place to go to.”