Clyde Hepner and Bruce Evans spent their first year as co-coordinators of Great Days of Service, which is in their 10th year of existence in Howe. The organization helped numerous families on 19 different projects.
In order for Great Days of Service to consider a project, it must meet their criteria of a non-rental property. It also has to be someone in true need of help outlined by the organization guidelines. Those guidelines are that the person must be physically or financially unable to take care of their property. A lot of the jobs are given to Great Days by the code enforcement of the City of Howe. The city is more interested in helping out the residents, rather than fining them.
“Just to see the impact that we can make on people’s lives with a lot of care and labor and a little bit of money.” said Hepner. “We can make a huge different in people that don’t have a front door or people that don’t have a hot water heater or people that can’t walk in the front door because of the steps falling together.”
Hepner said that many of the residents came out with tears in their eyes and that the emotions were high all weekend.
“The one that’s been most impactful to me was a job that we did east of town that the deck was falling together.” said Hepner.
The project was for a lady who has been and is still in the hospital in rehab for a number of months. The daughter of the lady was on-site and emotions of seeing people help overcame her.
“She cried so often when we were there, it was amazing to see the impact on her just to know how happy her mother would be.” said Hepner.
Another location had a water heater that was not just leaking, but gushing. In order to do the necessities of life, they would switch the unit on and off. Eventually, the water damage flooded the floor and rotted out the flooring. Great Days of Service, replaced the portion of the rotted floor and purchased a new water heater for the home.
“The people were very appreciative.” said Hepner. “We rebuilt their porch and the entire family was out there have their picture made on the new porch.”
Due to the wet weather, they weren’t able to do two of the major yard cleanups. They still have some brush to pick up from other locations. Three projects were cut short because of the skillset needed to complete the job.
“We got a lot done, but didn’t get all of them, but we’ll continue to work through the rest of the month to get them finished.” said Hepner.
The organization was up in volunteers by 10 percent. The average age of the worker was reduced heavily with numerous teenagers volunteering to help on projects this year.
“One of the things that I want to see us do is focus specifically on projects that the youth can do.” said Hepner. “We have youth coming, they want to help and they’ve been great help. We had a real ambitious crew this year.”
Great Days of Service was started by members of the First United Methodist Church of Howe and the vast majority of workers are members of that church, however, members of other churches also joined in the effort for 2015.
Hepner talked about Great Days of Service at a men’s breakfast bible study at First Baptist Church of Howe several months back and two men from Dorchester Baptist Church stepped forward and said that they would help.
“Those two guys are top-notch.” said Hepner. “They really did help us out a lot” Evans, who co-coordinated with Hepner said that his most rewarding job was the family with the water heater issue.
“People ask us why we do this and I just tell them that it’s something that needs to be done.” said Evans. “You can do it and expect something in return or you can do it and just say it needed to be done. We do this because it’s community. It’s a band of brothers and it pulls people together as a church family and a community. People who live close together help each other out. My daddy used to tell me to throw a little bread on the water because when you throw the rock in, the ripples carry and sooner or later, it’ll come back to you.” The group works in the Howe ISD school district area. And one of the projects included the old First Christian Church.
The group cleaned up all of the brush and weeds around the building, boarded up the windows and are preparing for paint in coming weeks. Mame Roberts Garden, next to the old church was also groomed. Evans said he saw tears that ranged from more than three to less than a couple of thousand. That’s what it’s all about.
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