Just two months into our volunteer work for the Adopt-A-Home program, ULC employees have already shown this community what we stand for.  We believe in helping our neighbors.  We believe in taking pride in home ownership.  And we’re not afraid to roll up our sleeves and get to work.

What a difference we’re making for Mrs. Trimble, our first Adopt-A-Home recipient!  We had 16  volunteers come to her house on Friday and Saturday to help take care of her house.  We enjoyed lots of laughs, and we accomplished a great deal.  Volunteers showed up to help with painting, yard work and window cleaning.  Let’s take a look at some of the photos:

Michelle Burke and Judy Beard team up to tackle one of the big front windows:

Lisa Norman, showing no fear of heights, took on the highest jobs and has volunteered to lead a team on a future Adopt-A-Home project (check back for more info on that as it becomes available):

You may remember our intrepid Bruce Gustafson venturing out last time to find gas so he could mow the lawn.  Well, he showed up to mow the lawn again; no small feat with all the growth thanks to the tremendous  rainfall we’ve had!

Here I am keeping everyone working and laughing.  It’s a tough job, but someone has to do it:

Again thanks to the rainfall we’ve been seeing, the hedges have had a growth spurt.  Never fear, Hank Buschmann is there to trim them back and get them under control:

It’s fantastic when new people join the Universal Lending family, but we really appreciate it when they embrace our causes and show up to lend a hand or two!  Cathy Stroud, the new VP of Business Development, brought her son Jake, and together they scraped and primed one of the big windows.

Not to be undone, Dave Leonard worked inside the house.  He replaced the garbage disposal and fixed some leaky plumbing:

Kirk Rasmussen has only been on the job at ULC for one week, but he didn’t waste any time getting involved with Adopt-A-Home:

For us to be able to paint the windows, we needed to take down the security bars and storm windows.  Andy Jorgensen showed up with a full set of tools to get that project done:

Linda Pryor helped out and wasn’t afraid to get messy:

Sandy Levy finished up one of the windows in the sunshine on Saturday morning:

Paulette Wisch was looking glamorous, as always, while she scrubbed the windows:

Mark Seccombe was a little camera shy, but we got him to take a break from scraping long enough to snap this pic:

Here’s what our dedicated volunteers have accomplished in only a few hours:

• Cleaned up the yard, mowed the grass and raked out last year’s leaves.
• Hauled away large trash items.
• Cleaned the gutters.
• Painted the trim.
• Pulled up the torn outdoor carpeting on the front porch.
• Scraped, primed and painted the windows.

Mrs. Trimble has been so tremendously grateful for our help.  Her house looks terrific – she’s proud of it again, and her neighbors are pleased, too!

Next steps

Next month, we’ll focus on finishing the painting of the house, and we’ll begin with some simple landscaping with new grass, and adding borders and mulch.

Stay tuned for more news about future Adopt-A-Home projects and opportunities for our partners in the community to participate.

Thanks to our volunteers!  We got a lot of things accomplished, but there is always more to be done!

Mark your Calendar with these volunteer opportunities in 2009, and Sign up today.

July 10 & 11
August 7 & 8
September 11 & 12
October 2 & 3
November 6 & 7

Fridays from 3 to 7 p.m.
Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m.

Mary Wells