Day of Caring is chance to give back
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MIKE McCLEARY/TribuneDonna Roll, center, snips a tree root two feet in the soil as she and other Caring of Caring volunteers from the Bank of North Dakota, Basin Electric Power Cooperative and Western Area Power Administration install a memorial pond at Tracy's Sanctuary House in Bismarck on Wednesday. The annual event is organized by the Missouri Slope Areawide United Way and gathers hundreds of volunteers to paint, clean or add improvements to 19 charitable or non-profit organizations in Bismarck-Mandan.
About 400 volunteers descended on Bismarck-Mandan non-profit and United Way agencies Wednesday for the annual United Way Day of Caring.
Brenda Stone, marketing director for United Way, said volunteers and employees representing 47 companies in the area took the day off to help with 19 projects around the community.
Total, Stone says, that equals about $45,000 in labor.
Some of the projects included painting the basement of Seeds of Hope, cleaning and landscaping Abused Adult Resource Center's Pam's House and updating the Mental Health Association's new property.
"We have been in North Dakota for over 55 years,"said Susan Rae Helgeland, executive director of MHA. "We have never owned our own building."
Helgeland said it's difficult to justify using donations to the agency for building improvements and maintenance; through the Day of Caring, they were able to refrain from spending those donations as well as get improvements such as custom painting, screens in upstairs windows, new sinks and new bathrooms.
"What a wonderful thing to have the community Day of Caring work with us to help a nonprofit like us,"Helgeland said.
- Crystal R. Reid
Posted in Local on Wednesday, August 15, 2007 7:00 pm Updated: 3:47 pm.
