What would make a couple dozen people spend one of the summer’s most beautiful weekends working on a total stranger’s home?
Why would a half dozen local businesses donate thousands of dollars in building supplies to repair the home of woman who will never walk through their door?
And who would load kids in the car and head over to an old, country home, only to spend the next 10 hours sawing, sanding, scraping, drilling, digging, pounding, painting?
I asked this very question of the many people who contributed to last weekend’s work on behalf of an elderly, ill homeowner whose home had fallen into disrepair.
And the answer? Invariably it was a version of what I have come to call “NIMBY in Reverse”:
Not in my backyard am I going to know about this kind of suffering and turn away. Not in my backyard am I going to allow an aging, suffering woman to live in unsafe, unsound conditions. Not on my watch are the needs of the needy going to go unmet.
So here’s a word of thanks to all who turned out at a moment’s notice to do an enormous amount of work on the home of a resident they had never met and may well never again see.
A huge word of thanks goes to Rankin’s Hardware, The Paint Shop, and The Home Depot, all of Warrenton, and Lowe’s of Gainesville, for donating building supplies; to Domino’s Pizza and Chick-Fil-A, both of Warrenton, for providing food for the volunteers; and to Fauquier Jewish Congregation, Saint James’ Episcopal Church, and members of the Fauquier community for turning out en mass to volunteer.
A special thanks also goes to thank Julie Randall, Nancy Lagasse, Dorothy Smith, and Rabbi Rose Jacob for their extraordinary efforts in helping pull this together in a matter of days.
Laurie
Laurie MacNaughton [NMLS# 506562] ∙ Reverse Mortgage Consultant, President’s Club ∙ Middleburg Mortgage, a Division of Middleburg Bank ∙ 20937 Ashburn Road ∙ Ashburn, VA 20147 ∙ 703-477-1183 Direct ∙ LMacNaughton@MiddleburgBank.com ∙ www.MiddleburgReverse.com
Visit my Informational Blog at https://middleburgreverselady.wordpress.com/
Laurie MacNaughton 703.477.1183 