Nearly 3,000 local residents participated in Menlo Park Presbyterian Church’s third annual “Compassion Weekend” April 26 and 27, as parishioners opted to forgo church services in favor of helping needy agencies. Approximately 880 members are from Los Altos and Los Altos Hills.

Participants selected projects among 21 options, ranging from assembling AIDS kits for Africa to holding health-care clinics and repairing local schools and homes for seniors.

Of the volunteers assembled at the main church and Menlo Park’s two “Open Door” satellite churches, 2,600 pre-registered for the event and approximately 300 just came, said Nicole Laubscher, director of communications. She said 15 percent of the participants do not regularly attend Menlo Park Presbyterian but showed up to help.

“We completed what we hoped to,” Laubscher said. “It was an incredible weekend of people interacting who would otherwise perhaps never meet.”

For more information, visit www.mppc.org.