It occured to me that we didn’t actually talk about our first trip out to the Trimble Home the first weekend in may, so I wanted to jump in and post a little about our experience. (We’ve since been out to do some painting, but I’ll talk about that later)

Our first Adopt-A-Home volunteer event last weekend was a huge success.  All the volunteers had a great time working on Mrs. Trimble’s house, with lots of laughs and some good exercise, too.  Most importantly, we left with a great sense of accomplishment after making Mrs. Trimble’s yard look great!

“This would have taken me all summer, and I still wouldn’t have gotten it done,” Said Mrs. Trimble.  With a wink, she said her nice looking yard would make her neighbors happy, too.

For those of you who weren’t able to join us and meet Mrs. Trimble, she has lived in her home in Park Hill for more than 40 years. She is 74 years old, and even though she has arthritis, she still works part time for Denver Public Schools as a food service assistant. She has not been physically able to do yard work and maintenance on her home for some time, so she greatly appreciated our help.

It was terrific to see so many of you make the time to volunteer even though it has been such a busy time for Universal Lending.

“Oh yeah, it’s been busy, but this stuff is important,” said Dave Leonard. “I’m a big believer in karma, and this is the kind of stuff you have to do.”

Dave and the other volunteers spent the afternoon clearing old furniture, tree stumps and trash from the backyard, cleaning gutters, raking and sweeping. They even pulled out a concrete stump from an old clothesline.

“The nice thing about this project is that you see the results really quickly,” said Carrie Goldman.

Bruce Gustafson finished up the day by going to the nearest gas station to fill up Mrs. Trimble’s lawnmower, then mowed the entire yard. Her yard looked terrific when we all left.

Thanks to the following volunteers from Universal Lending:

Joe Coughlin, Carrie Goldman, Lisa Norman, Michele Burke, Edna Gallagher, Dave Leonard, Bruce Gustafson, Pete Lansing, Susanne Lansing, Hank Buschmann, Patrick Hester, Peter Repka, Dana Smith

I’ll post more later, but wanted to get this out there for all to read.  We have more photos over at our Trimble Home Page if you’re interested.

Mary Wells