Joe and Mary Mottino Family YMCA

Project: Joe and Mary Mottino Family YMCA
Project Managers: Rick and Margo Felkins
Project Leaders: Dennis and Marva Stone, Bob and Barbara West
Scope of Projects: Are You Kidding me Rick? In One Weekend!!!!

Set the stage so you know the plan; Rick and Margo meet with leadership at YMCA and develop an aggressive project scope; YMCA staff is extremely grateful for our commitment – North Coast always bites off more than seems possible and God and his faithful servants always seem to make it all work out!

Commitments are made to run major renovations to primary YMCA campus, plus two off site classroom trailers at Christa McAuliffe and Ivey Ranch Elementary Schools – complete repaint of exterior of classroom trailers for after school programs.

Rick Felkins spends endless hours planning, revising, honing, cajoling, pleading for his staff of skilled and willing volunteers – all with incredible hearts, spirits, attitudes, and desire to serve our communities. The tasks and scope was daunting; here’s just a sampling of what had to be accomplished in two whirlwind days:
1. Sink, Faucet and Countertop Replacement; sink, faucet and toilet replacements – Women’s Locker Room
2. Relocate, renovate entire front counter top, re-carpet, replace baseboards in Child Watch Room
3. Schedule construction, delivery, prime and paint 10 wood picnic tables
4. Fabricate and install temporary, portable fabric fencing to cordon off playground area
5. Completely repaint exteriors of offsite classroom trailers at two Oceanside elementary schools for after school YMCA programs

Personal reflections – God always delivers on his Just in Time promises, as Larry always says. The task is huge, the ranks of volunteers seem miniscule, then God provides just the right number of cheerful servants at just the right stage of each project; each willing and enthusiastic to do whatever they are called on to accomplish. Fluid situations, unknown challenges, ebb and flow of workers – this is not the regimented construction environment that I am used to operating in!
Let me share just one example.
Managing offsite projects is challenging to say the least – getting manpower and materials to the site, and then executing the mission demands exceptional resources and plenty of good luck!

Day One – Christa McAuliffe Elementary School YMCA Classroom

Somehow we get the sweet combination of YMCA staff employees who recruited their college group Growth Group from NCC, powered by Paul and Jill Savona. Project co-leader Scott Shaw was an exceptionally gifted leader. This was the project from Heaven – happy spirits, lots of laughs and camaraderie, paint seemed to multiply itself with incredible coverage and NO SPILLS, and project was buttoned up and spit polished by 2:30 pm – certainly an A+ Project and Result if anyone was grading us!

Day Two – Ivey Ranch Elementary School YMCA Classroom

Again, plenty of willing and cheerful volunteers, even though the morning was cold, windy and gloomy. Weather forecast showed no rain, so we caravanned to Ivey Ranch to replicate the success we enjoyed from Saturday. Oceanside’s Coastal Eddy showed up, spitting mist until he raged into a drizzly rain by 10:00 am. Jason Hazard and his many volunteers, including his young son, made a valiant effort to complete just the base color paint of the exterior of the classroom. We finally called a stand down, and watched in dismay as the freshly painted walls turned to Tan rivulets of diluted paint, flowing across the tarps and finally the asphalt that we had spent so many hours prepping to protect from the drips and spills from our efforts. Pizza was ordered, but no break was found in the weather – our project seemed doomed for failure.
Nancy Osborne, who had spent Saturday on another project, and many hours on our project “cutting in” the trailer with her bucket and brush, offered to stay to the bitter end and help clean up and load up the trailer – because now it was just Jason and me standing in the rain contemplating our fate!
Soaked to the skin like rats, Jason and I rolled up sopping tarps, took down screens ruined by dripping paint, and looked in horror as the asphalt was running rivers of paint. Many phone calls were made, options explored, but no good solutions seemed in store.

Desperate for clean up measures (no accessible water was on site), Scott, our City community project coordinator, remembered one of his buddies who runs a pressure wash service company. Arrangements were made for Dave Pulse from Integrity Pressure Wash to bring his pressure wash rig to the school to mitigate the damage and wash away the mess! Dave was amazing, saved the day and our project from failure, and was another outstanding example of God providing exactly what we needed at exactly the right time. I never believed that heroes should go unsung, so let’s sing the praises of Dave Pulse getting the job done – to perfection!

Another angel of note – I mentioned that screens were ruined as the rain cascaded paint down our screens and windows.
Kelsey Sass, good friend, firefighter, and jack-of-all trades took it upon himself to re-screen every screen that came off that classroom. Windows were buffed, fresh screens installed, and only a minor amount of finish up is required for another weekend, and then this project will be a shining example of what North Coast is all about.

Why did we write all of this?
Because this is only one of our many stories from Weekend of Service, and only one of His stories. I tried several times and requested our staff to record the names of every volunteer who served personally with us on these projects, but even that seemed impossible.

So our hope is that each of you will share this story and our sincerest thanks and gratitude to all who served so faithfully this weekend. We can only trust that God will make sure that our appreciation and His blessings will spill out on everyone who contributed so generously to this Weekend of Service.

Since we don’t have everyone’s emails, please forward to everyone that we have missed on this email.

God bless,
 
Bob and Barbara West