As I write this mid-December, we are wrapping up this whirlwind of a year, ever hopeful to catch our breath before the next thing inserts itself into our agenda, but hardly ever has that happened this year. Our 16-year-old HVAC unit, the companion to the unit servicing the West Wing that we replaced this summer, began running constantly because the defrost control board quit, and the cost of repairing it was daunting, but the cost of replacing it even more. After all, that’s our fifth one this year (and we still have three others that are over their life expectancy and three more close to it . . . ) We were all set to have to repair it because we did not have the funds at this point in the year, when what to our wondering ears did appear, but a Santa (who always seems to know what’s up!) with a $5,000 gift in hand, asking if that would make enough difference so that we could replace rather than repair the unit. We elected to couple that gift with the last $6,000 in our Building Improvements Designated Fund (the last of the wonderful donations made by a number of you this past year) and another $1,391 from Capital Reserves so that the unit is being replaced. We are so blown away by the generosity of people in this congregation. Santa or Angel or whatever name they go by, we should thank the person sitting next to us in church for their generosity because it just might be one of those who have been “the wind beneath our wings” this year.

And now it has come to our attention that the permanent housing of Family Promise families at Westminster Presbyterian sadly has fallen through, and we will now be housing families here again beginning February 11. We are therefore looking at an urgent need to get the showers repaired in the men’s and women’s bathrooms of the education wing so that we don’t have to send these folks elsewhere to shower every night. The shower in the men’s bathroom has been leaking and damaging the drywall of the newly renovated education wing, and it is connected to the women’s shower, so both must be done at the same time. We have plans to upgrade those bathrooms in the not-too-distant future and redesign the unisex bathroom along that hall to be accessible to disabled people, so this will not be an extensive project to fix the showers, but all told will cost about $6,500. We have gotten estimates from two plumbers, one of whom is available during this time frame and can do a lot of the extraneous work that we would otherwise have to have other subcontractors do.

Carol Baron and I have met with the Capital Campaign planning committee and Carol has been super busy getting estimates for all these line items. We will have decent soft estimates within a week. We hold and balance numerous priorities simultaneously — health and safety are always at the forefront of our work, and we are ever mindful of our environmental footprint (and have gracious oversight from Connie Caldwell from the Creation Care and Climate Justice Committee in that regard). We also know that it is important to all of us that our property not only serves us well but also furthers our ability to carry out our outreach in this community. We have well-thought-out conversations on the Re-Mod Squad and our multiple perspectives continue to give us better solutions for each of the projects we undertake. — Liz Harvey