Day of Caring brings out volunteers
Basin Electric employees were among nearly 400 volunteers who worked to refurbish community projects as part of Missouri Slope United Way's annual Day of Caring.
Basin Electric Power Cooperative
- August 18, 2010
Mother Nature sent some fine weather on Wednesday as her contribution to the efforts of nearly 400 volunteers who worked indoors and out refurbishing community projects as part of Missouri Slope Areawide United Way's annual Day of Caring. After breakfast on a day of ideal temperatures, the volunteers were parceled out to 27 projects in the community, where they painted, cleaned and lent a hand to help agencies, charities and nonprofits.
At Goodbird Home, a boys' residence of Charles Hall Youth Services serving at-risk youth, nine people from the local Coca-Cola Bottling Company were set up to paint walls, ceilings, closets and furniture for four boys' bedrooms. The team leader for this crew was Jason Millner, a financial adviser with Stifel Nicolaus. A team leader's role is to coordinate the volunteers and make sure everybody has enough to do, said Millner, who has served with United Way for 15 years in various capacities, including the board of trustees. Painting indoors on a hot, stuffy day can be challenging, but temperatures in the 70s and a cool breeze was helping the paint dry on the walls indoors and the furniture getting a new coat on the driveway outdoors.
Meanwhile, at Buckstop Junction in east Bismarck, volunteers were painting several of the historic buildings of the village. Lifts and scaffolding boosted painters to the second floors of a couple of the pioneer buildings, structures which were rescued over the years and moved in from towns around North Dakota. Window trim and siding were being scraped and repainted on the 1906 barber shop that was moved to Buckstop Junction from Goodrich, courtesy of volunteers from Basin Electric and Tesoro Refinery.
Northeast of the barber shop, a crew was repainting a golden tan on the west face of a gargantuan building that was once a lumberyard. Fifteen volunteers from Mor Gran Sou Rural Electric, North Dakota Association of Rural Electric Cooperatives, Basin Electric and Capital Electric were scraping and painting the weather-worn windward side of the building under the direction of team captain, Wes Engbrecht of Capital Electric.
Though Buckstop Junction has several people who regularly help with maintenance, the painting goes a lot faster with a big crew like this, Engbrecht said.
Headquarters
1717 East Interstate Avenue
Bismarck, ND 58503-0564 USA
Phone: 701.223.0441
Basin Electric Power Cooperative will provide cost-effective wholesale energy along with products and services that support and unite rural America.
