Community Service Day - South Whidbey

Windermere celebrated its 26^th annual Community Service Day on June 18^th. Agents and support staff from all ten western states gave back to the communities that support them by dedicating a day of work on neighborhood improvement projects. For the third year running, South Whidbey agents chose to work at Good Cheer at Bayview — the food bank/thrift store that aids needy South Enders. Three agents spent their day repainting the meeting room at the Freeland Library.

Good Cheer’s Executive Director Kathy McLaughlin put agents to work laying gravel in the entry drive and parking areas. Damien Cortez, Food Bank Coordinator, organized a crew to repaint the entry a “welcoming butter yellow,” while Cary Peterson showed others how to prepare planting beds in the vegetable garden. More agents helped price donated clothing and household items or sorted food products.

First Island Financial brokers Ron Eaton, Kevin Engstrom and Caig Buchanan supplied breakfast and lent moral encouragement. The pitiful sight of four fifty-somethings shoveling gravel inspired Ron to rent a Kubota tractor. It enabled us to regravel the drive in record time. Kathy Enters of Stewart South Island Escrow provided a most welcome lunch for volunteers.

Good Cheer is a lifesaver for our community. So far this year, they’ve served an average of 784 families per month. Laudable, but food expenditures have outstripped monetary donations by a 2:1 ratio. As you’d expect in a struggling economy, donations are down while demand is up - a 10% increase from last year.

Agents ended the day tired, sore and sun burnt, but feeling like they’d contributed to an important cause. Kathy iced the cake for us by saying, “We are in AH! It is just unbelievable what was accomplished today.”

Follow responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Leave a response, or trackback from your own site.