He didn't think he would be pulling weeds.

But that's where Horsley found himself on Tuesday, helping clean up a shelter for single mothers near the Twin Cities.

While television images of the national convention show flowing red carpets, sparkling lights and fiery rhetoric, behind the scenes many delegates are taking time out to plant flowers, pick up trash or paint walls.

Horsley said he received about 100 party invitations when he was elected a delegate but instead found himself one night at his hotel in Bloomington, Minn., helping other Utah Republicans pack emergency kits of toothbrushes, combs, deodorant and other hygiene items for evacuees of Hurricane Gustav. It is one of several service projects Republican delegations are performing around the host cities.

"It's kind of been nice to do something for people you don't know, far away in the Gulf," said Horsley, the Davis County Republican Party chairman.

Delegation members literally passed a hat at their Tuesday morning breakfast and raised about $4,000 to pay for a thousand of the packs sent to the evacuees.

Tuesday afternoon, a good portion of the delegates, guests and alternates spent a few hours cleaning up a housing complex devoted to helping single mothers find jobs and raise their kids. Utah Senate President John Valentine washed windows.

Sean Reyes, a Salt Lake City lawyer, said he doesn't mind a little community service.

"I was put on notice that we'd be doing a lot of good for the community as well as our party," Reyes said. It's a celebration mixed with service, he said.

Democrats also did community service during their convention in Denver.

tburr@sltrib.com