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

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

I am amazed with the response we received today to our fundraising event. Based on the total, there will be 50 employees sporting Blue Jeans for a week in the month of May. I cannot thank you enough for your excitement and participation in this event. Based on monies received and pledges, we were able to raise $1,425.00 in 1 day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This is incredible and I can’t thank you enough for your generosity. I will be distributing stickers to those who gave me checks. If you haven’t responded yet, there is still time to participate. Please send me an e-mail if you would like to donate on someone’s behalf or if you would like to wear jeans for a week.

I can’t thank all of you enough for your generous donations and it was heartwarming to see so many of you donate on behalf of fellow employees-what a great way to show your appreciation for the hard work being done by your co-workers. During these busy times, isn’t it great to be able to stop and say “thanks”???

Volunteers have made a big dent in the clean up of Mrs. Trimble’s yard and we have now started priming and painting of windows and trim. Everywhere we look, we see additional repairs needed on Mrs. Trimble’s home, so the list (and cost) continues to grow. She is very appreciative of our work and looks forward to our visits. YOU are truly making a big difference in the life of one special deserving lady.

Rachel Cure started a fundraising event within her department as she is determined to raise additional funds to replace Mrs. Trimble’s yard which consist mostly of weeds. A very special “Thank You” to Rachel for taking a special interest in this project in going above and beyond the call of “volunteering”.

My deepest appreciation for the generous support you have all shown for this successful fundraising event. I am so proud to work with compassionate and caring employees that make UNIVERSAL LENDING CORPORATION the fantastic, successful company it is.

THANK YOU

Mary Wells
Executive Director
Universal Lending Foundation

Take a look at photos from the day by clicking this link.

Enjoy!

~Management