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Miss America 2003 Erika Harold wields a hammer as U.S. Secretary of Commerce Don Evans holds a jungle-gym pole they helped install in a brand-new playground in Washington, D.C., on Make A Difference Day. By John Harrington for USA WEEKEND Click for Hi-Res More photos!

By Laura Greenspan

An estimated 3 million people restored, refilled and repaired - spirits as well as structures - Saturday, Oct. 26, the 12th annual Make A Difference Day.

The outpouring of neighborliness and good deeds came from college students and overseas soldiers, White House staff and country singers, corporate bankers and teddy bear collectors. Add them up and they form the largest day of community service in the world.

7 statewide efforts
"I have my hammer and tool belt out," said Ohio First Lady Hope Taft, who with her husband, Gov. Robert Taft, and Ohio State University volunteers helped build a fence at a Columbus nursing home. "I'm hoping that people will take from this day that it feels good to give, and that they will want to do it again and again."

In Ohio, that seems to be the case. For the first time, each of the state's 88 counties hosted an official project.

Six other statewide efforts took place in North Carolina, Michigan, Delaware, Mississippi, Missouri and New Jersey.

Country singer Wynonna, who read to children in New Brunswick, N.J., as part of that state's drive for 100,000 books, said, "In today's drive-thru world, we all need to take the time to get involved. Make A Difference Day puts your butt in the seat of involvement." Just five miles away, in North Brunswick, the literacy group First Book packed another 280,000 books into volunteers' cars.

Free of sniper fears in Washington, D.C., volunteers built a playground from the ground up for 400 low-income children. Reflecting on a year of tragic events, Miss America 2003 Erika Harold said, "Hope lies in the 30 millions lives that will be touched, benefited, changed as a result of Make A Difference Day." She wielded a hammer alongside Home Depot CEO Robert Nardelli, 100 White House staffers, U.S. Commerce Secretary Don Evans and KaBoom!, a non-profit that creates playgrounds and spearheaded two more builds today in Texas and California.

In Nashville, country singer Martina McBride and her daughters, ages 4 and 7, donated clothes from their closets and baked and decorated Halloween cookies for a Make A Difference Day party at the Cumberland Science Museum for children residing at Safe Haven, a shelter for homeless families.

Worldwide scope
Make A Difference Day is sponsored by the national newspaper magazine USA WEEKEND and the Points of Light Foundation. An online database at makeadifferenceday.com lists more than 4,000 project plans in every state, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and at least a half dozen foreign countries.

In Brazil, 200,000 volunteers registered for efforts led by the college group, Students in Free Enterprise.

In the United Kingdom, 55,000 volunteers tackled 3,250 projects coordinated by Community Service Volunteers, a UK charity.

In Germany, 350 soldiers and family members from the U.S. Army's 414th Base Support Battalion in Hanau collected coats for Kosovo, built, renovated, landscaped, raised money for scholarships, and sought holiday gifts for needy kids - a microcosm of projects planned stateside.

Broad action by corporations
Citigroup employees - 3,000 strong in 26 cities, including Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - hammered, recycled, cleaned and instructed.

Hecht's and Strawbridge's - 80 department stores from New Jersey to North Carolina - tallied the day's housewares purchases and set aside 5% of sales to benefit women's domestic violence shelters.

And nearly 100 volunteers from Campbell's Soup headquarters rallied to four sites in their Camden, N.J., hometown, including St. John's Baptist Clothing Ministry. Campbell's employees donated more than 20 truckloads of items to the ministry in the past week in honor of recently deceased co-worker Al Pegram, who frequently spoke of the ministry's efforts to clothe Camden's neediest. "It's a great way to extend Al's services," said Steve Milanese, a research scientist who worked with Pegram for 18 years. "Al's going to be looking down on us with a big smile."

Soothing wounds
In just four hours, 893 teddy bears and stuffed animals were donated to Denver's Child Rescue Foundation. "I don't think anybody has stopped smiling since 7:30 this morning," when high school students unexpectedly arrived to dispense snacks, said Joanne Kappel, executive director of the group. Smallest donation: a 2-inch collectible teddy bear. Largest: a 6-foot panda. All will go to children traumatized by family violence or medical emergencies.

Around the country, volunteer projects honored the victims and heroes of Sept. 11 as part of the Points of Light Foundation's USA Initiative.

More than 250 students and parents from St. Joseph School and Melbourne Central Catholic High School in Palm Bay-Melbourne, Fla., dedicated an environmental project (removing invasive Brazilian pepper trees from the Indian River Lagoon shoreline) to 11-year-old Bernard Curtis Brown II, a Washington, D.C., student killed when American Airlines Flight 77 crashed into the Pentagon. He had been bound for a National Geographic Society-sponsored science program. In attendance on Make A Difference Day: Bernard's mother, father and 8-year-old sister. Noted organizer Mary Loschiavo: "We're healing the river and helping to heal this family at the same time."