Day of Caring is about helping others

Helping hands help kick off United Way drive

By CHANCE PRIGGE

Journal Staff Writer

NEW ULM -- Saturday afternoon a group participating in a Day of Caring project for the United Way was taking its work break when most other groups had already finished their projects.

Lunch was out on the front yard at the German Street house. Workers sat and stood -- eating, talking and laughing -- with the fruits of their labor starting to incline toward the house's garage.

The group was building a handicap-accessible ramp. The ramps posts and plywood base, both of which make up the skeleton of the ramp, were up. But the group still had a ways to go.

The project grew from the effort and cooperation of a few organizations.

SMILES, a non-profit independent-living agency for people with disabilities, helped line up the project, with the Brown County Family Services providing financial assistance. Abraham Construction worked with Brown County's Sentence to Serve -- a program that lets people, some of them in jail, work off fines -- to manage the construction.

"We all just got together," SMILES Advocacy Coordinator Robin Thompson said. "Everything was here when we came this morning."

Shane Kraus, an STS crew leader, has worked with his crew before to build ramps, among other things, and this project had already been scheduled. But when he was told about the United Way's Day of Caring, he saw it fitting to switch days.

The Day of Caring is the United Way's annual day in September in which volunteers from the community work on home projects for people who wouldn't otherwise be able to do them. It sets the tone for the annual United Way campaign, which has a goal this year of raising $390,000.

Back in the spring, STS built a ramp for the back of the house, which is owned by Cyle Gruver, but a ramp in the front was still needed "just to make it a more accessible environment," Kraus said.

Gruver, who lives with a disabled man, was appreciative of the work being done.

"I think it's a very fine project," Gruver said. "The stairways are awkward to manage for people who have mobility disabilities."

The ramp will be modular, which means, if necessary, the ramp can be taken apart and moved to another home that could use it.

But Gruver said the ramp will not only be helpful for the man who lives with him but for future generations of people living in the house who may need the assistance.

Building ramps generally takes two to four days, but Thompson and Kraus were figuring, with all the available help, the project could be complete within one day's work.

The project was only one of dozens that were carried out Saturday. They included everything from washing windows, cleaning gutters and trimming hedges to painting, cutting trees out of a flower bed and simply having somebody to visit with.

Several local businesses, organizations and volunteers were involved in Saturday's various projects.