Christmas In July

"Saturday, July 11th was another amazing example of why we are so blessed to live in this community. I want to say a huge thank-you to everyone that made our 4th annual Christmas in July effort such a tremendous success. The willingness of so many people to give of their time and money to help others is truly what makes our community so special. This year we had right around 100 volunteers help make needed repairs to 21 homes and counting. Due to the generosity of many people, including one significant anonymous donor, we are able to continue helping our neighbors even in our off-season. I would like to thank Nick and Gretchen from ACE hardware for their generous $500.00 donation again this year. I want to thank the Laskey-Clifton Corp., the Association of Reedsport Educators, the Reedsport Seventh Day Adventist Church, the Oregon and Southwest Washington Church of God Social Concerns Commission, the American Legion local chapter, Fred Wahl Marine, our local Rotarians and the Reedsport Church of God for all your generous financial contributions. I would also like to thank Safeway, Price-n-Pride and Bedrocks for your contributions towards feeding our volunteers and the Presbyterian church for hosting us for breakfast and St. John's Catholic church for hosting us for lunch. A special thanks goes to Jamie Swafford, Sherry at the coffee break and Lori at the Umpqua Post and K-Dune radio for being so willing to publicize our event and planning meetings and to Bill Knerr for doing an incredible job year after year keeping the web-site up and running. I would also like to thank Umpqua Building and supply, Greg Olson, and Southern Oregon Sanitation for your support of this worthy project. A very special thanks goes to all the wonderful folks that spent hours behind the scenes helping plan and make this project so successful. People such as Stan Bates, Georganne Lechner, Frank Paula, Charlie Gardner, Jennifer Tymchuk, Janet Patin, Ann Launstein, Pastor Gehrke, Donna Kenagy, Jerry Christiansen, Bernie Sabblut, and especially Sharon Thompson who without your help this year I would have been in trouble. I really hope I haven't missed anyone so deserving of thanks as everyone else I've mentioned but knowing me I probably have and I apologize. You know how much we all appreciate the efforts everyone gives to this very worthwhile community project. Thank-you for another great year of "people helping people" and we'll see you again next year."
Pastor Allen Chaney Co-chair, Christmas in July 2009