Church group gives Burley home, post office a facelift

Published 2:52 pm Thursday, September 24, 2009

For weeks now, Burley resident Barbara Laxson has been hosting church services at her house. But instead of bibles, the attendees bring paint brushes and ladders.

“My husband and I have been wanting something like this for a long time,” said Jan Leigh, a Gig Harbor resident whose church, Chapel Hill Presbyterian, decided to take its services outside for one day and worship by helping others in need. “We all got on our dirty clothes, rolled up our sleeves and got muddy. It was very satisfying to see the result.”

Leigh said the idea — called Go Sunday — originated with church officials Shari Monson and Sheila Mischke, and soon Chapel Hill’s congregation had 70 project ideas in South Kitsap, Purdy and Tacoma, and 1,400 members signed up to complete them all.

“Along with painting, we did yard work, hauled away debris, made fleece socks and even baked cookies for prisoners,” Leigh said, explaining that a lot of the people her church helped were widows like Laxson. “They’re in their 70s and 80s. They can’t paint their house or take things to the dump.”

Laxson, who is actually 69, said her family moved into the house when she was 9. It was built in 1899, and hadn’t been painted in 35 years.

Fellow Burley resident Susie Sanders, who visits the Burley Post Office directly across the street from Laxson’s house nearly every day, suggested the church members paint both buildings.

With paint donated by Scott McLendon’s Hardware, the volunteers put six gallons of blue on the post office, and 15 gallons of red on Laxson’s house.

“The shingles just soaked up the paint,” Leigh said, adding that before they could even pick up the paint brushes, volunteers “very gently” cleaned the shingles with a wire brush. “We couldn’t pressure wash them. They would have disintegrated.”

Wednesday morning, Leigh, her husband Jim and fellow church member Andrew Baldwin were touching-up the trim on the house and remembering what it looked like when they started the project seven weeks ago.

“It was patches of faded brown and mold,” Leigh said. “This made a world of a difference.”

Laxson agreed, and said she was also grateful that one of the volunteers helped re-shingle some sections of her house and repair leaks. In all, 25 people were “assigned” to Laxson’s house.

“You get so much more done when you have a bunch of people,” said Leigh, adding that the idea was so successful and had so many people inspired and excited that she hoped to keep the momentum rolling.

“It is on everybody’s mind right now,” she said, explaining that the idea survived and thrived despite near disaster on the day chosen for most of the events.

“We scheduled ‘Go Sunday’ for Sept. 6, which was pouring down rain,” Jim Leigh said. “But you should have seen all the people, just out there in the rain working anyway.”