On April 30th Christmas In April began their 21st year of working on homes in our county. Over 1300 volunteers participated in the repair of 22+ homes. The weather, after tornadoes on Thursday, was great the rest of the weekend. Our house captains and area coordinators, along with their workers, took on lots of different repairs, from basement floors to roof repairs and/or replacement, along with everything in between. Floors were replaced, walls fixed, plumbing and electrical problems were repaired. Yards were cleared, mowed and planted with flowers with mulch to go around them. Over a hundred gallons of paint was applied to interior and exterior surfaces. Trash by the truckloads was hauled away, thanks to the Great Mills Trading Post, Steve Dysons Hauling , A & B Trucking, Maryland State Highway Administration, and St. Mary’s County Dept of Public Works and Bob Morehouse and Waste Management.
Thanks to Mary Bohanon and Robert Quade at Dyson’s Lumber and Supply, our materials were collected from our donors and business contacts, including Lowes, Thos. Somerville Co., Chaney Enterprises, Mattingly Electric, Dean Lumber, Bob Green Siding Co., The Greenery, Mechanicsville Building & Supply, and numerous other businesses, and with the help of several Leonardtown High School and Harry Lundeberg students, they were separated into piles for each home.
Our board members helped prepare the fairgrounds for the materials to be given out to our homes, including, Mary Ann and Steve Chasen, John Weiner, Julia Bohle, Darene Kleinsorgen, Kathy & Jerry Slagle, Tammy Pilkerton, Lee Dyson, Sandra Guy, Sergio Jimenez, Fred Morton, Philip Scriber, Spencer Scriber, and Vince Williams, with other volunteers including John & Sharon Mattingly, Ann Hawes and Gavin Benckert.
Due to a scheduling glich, we had to work around Holy Face’s Springfest, but both organizations had an easy day of making it work. Frances and Mary Lillian Hewitt, Jerry Humenik and Father Calis were a treat to work with and most of their volunteers worked side by side with us to make everything go smoothly.
Our volunteers were fed great lunches put on by different small businesses, restaurants, churches, local civic organizations, unions and individuals. There seems to be a competition to see who could put on the best feast. These “Feed A Crews” were organized by Julia Bohle, who has always made sure everyone is taken care of. After the day of work, a wonderful dinner was shared with food donated by many local groups and businesses. We will be listing all of our food and beverage contributors in our annual newsletter, but would like to take the opportunity to thank our major picnic sponsors, including the Mechanicsville Lions Club, Sunshine Catering, Bozick Distributors, Waterman’s Association, Buck Distributing, Guy Distributing, Metro Restaurant & Janitorial Supplies, and the Paul Hall Center. Our dinner was organized again by Connie Pennington and her group of volunteers. Thanks again for doing a hard job. We had music donated by Larry Greenwell of Eliz Beatz for our picnic.
Our program has worked on close to 600 homes over the years, with over $4million dollars worth of home repairs, with donated labor and materials, either bought through our fundraising or donated by generous businesses. We’ll be starting back to work next month, preparing for 2012. Again, I’d like to thank our house captains, area coordinators, and volunteers for a job very well done. Our program would never have reached the goodness that it does without our Executive Director, Mary Ann Chasen. She works many hours all year long to keep us running like a fine swiss clock. Our board of Directors a
