On Saturday, November 20th, Highlands Church and North Bible Church teamed up with Harpers Nurseries, Dunkin Donuts and the Code Cares Program with the City of Scottsdale to help clean up some homes in south Scottsdale.  We got the idea after meeting with a person who works in the Citizen & Neighborhood  Resources Dept. with the City of Scottsdale.  Part of her job is to write tickets to people whose home’s exterior is in violation of city codes.  The hard part about her job, she shared, is that some of the people who receive tickets, which carries with it a fine, are either physically unable to do the repairs and/or they are on a fixed income and cannot pay the fine or afford to make the repairs.  She then shared with us about a program she developed called Code Cares.  This program was set up to provide all the structure needed to help groups step in and do the work of improving these homes.  The city provides a tool trailer and gets permission from the home owners and hopefully the group that does the work not only has a great “serving” experience but  ultimately they bless the families whose home they fix up.

So our group decided to take on 5 to 10 of these homes in south Scottsdale and after sharing the vision with Harpers Nurseries they joined us and were very instrumental in helping us really make some significant improvements to some of the homes.  Some of the homes needed just some trees trimmed and weeds pulled while others needed the entire front of the house painted.  Over 140 people showed up early on Saturday morning of November 20th, had a few donuts and some coffee provided by Dunkin Donuts, and after breaking into teams we were off to work at the 9 projects.

Here are some reports from the day:

1. The group that cleaned up the easement had some people from the neighborhood come out not only to express their gratitude, but a few even helped with the project.
2. One of the groups that had a house to paint ended up helping the next door neighbor with their air conditioner and the neighbor across the street with some landscaping.
3. When Michelle went to one of the houses that needed rock (Mitch Malinski’s group), the woman came out to express her thanks to Michelle. Michelle told me she could not stop talking about how much she appreciated the group. Finally the lady asked if she could mail a thank you, so Michelle gave he the church address. I will pass this on when I get it.
4. Finally there was a house that needed lots of clean up in the front yard including large trees that needed trimming. The owners of the home are elderly, in fact the husband is unable to do any physical activity and the wife is very depressed, fearful and they have little to no income. When we got the project the lady made it very clear that she did not want the trees trimmed too much, for she wanted her windows to remain covered. Well when Michelle got to her office on Monday she had a call from the lady who was angry that the trees were cut above the windows. Michelle promptly called her back and after a few more conversations Michelle was able to find out what the real issue was. The woman actually loved the way everything looked but she was fearful that now that the trees were trimmed, Michelle would see that their house needed paint very badly, she would get another code violation and she can not afford to paint it. Well Michelle assured her that she would not be writing her a ticket and she shared with the women that our group could possibly come back to paint the front of the house when we do this again on January 15th. The woman broke down and cried on the phone, for she was so thankful. Wow, is that cool or what??

Jeff Thibault
North Bible Church

Click here to view pictures from this Season of Service project.