On July 19-20, a group from Northshore Christian Church in Everett, WA, converged on the home of Mildred Perry. Mildred is a wonderful woman in her 80's with longstanding involvement in the church and the community. In recent years, her husband passed away. Living with Mildred are her teen grandson, whom she has adopted, and her grown son, who is disabled. Our group came to give a helping hand to them in caring for their large, overgrown property. We made a huge difference, and I think the family was genuinely touched as well.
It was also great to see Leland (Mildred’s grandson) and Randy (Mildred’s neighbor) getting involved in the work and making connections with the volunteers.
Brian (Mildred’s son who is a parapalegic) connected a bit with Terrance Souza, a fellow parapalegic, who happened to be one of our hardest working volunteers!
We intentionally worked-through Northshore volunteers to make the planning & management happen. The small team of leaders were incredible to work with, and are already talking about next time. This has been our hope and plan from the beginning of our partnership – to multiply leadership and initiative with ordinary people in the church congregation. Now this team of highly motivated people can join with Graham Smith to begin to expand the team. It will be exciting to see this develop in future projects.
PROJECTS COMPLETED
Massive property-wide yard cleanup (approx.1/2 acre lot)
Pressure walking walls, walkways, and gutters
Clearing moss from roof
Cleaning and sealing gutters
Unclogging & redirecting downspouts
Gardening / planting
Removal of yard debris & garbage (6 loads)
Wood shed construction (8-foot square)
Splitting & stacking firewood (about 2 cords)
Installation of landscaping fabric & barkdust (about 1200 square feet)
Repair loose metal post of metal hand railing
STATS
Total Volunteers: 38
Total Man-hours: 210