Your Facilities team has been hard at work this past year. Here are just a few of the things that some of our team members repaired, replaced, installed, or completed.

Larry Lile spearheaded the effort to replace many of our standard and fluorescent light bulbs with LED bulbs and installed a booster for the WIFI signal.

Lynn Hostetler oversaw the replacement of the floor tiles in the upstairs kitchen and reset the loose tiles in the upstairs bathrooms.

Jeremy Long replaced a hot-water pump that went out.

Among other things, Kevin McKiernan oversaw the trapping of critters (i.e., mostly squirrels and rodents) from our building and the numerous modifications to our facility to exclude animal infiltration in the future. Kevin has also kept our toilets operating in bathrooms upstairs and downstairs.

In the early part of 2024, we purchased new ovens and ice makers for the refrigerators in the upstairs kitchen. In the fall, we had our parking lot repaved and lines painted, adding a handicap spot near the side entrance and traffic flow arrows.

Thanks to the many volunteers who came to one or more of the fall Saturday work-days to help with the Tree Deck playground project, which is more than halfway completed. This coming spring the Facilities Team will be constructing a nearly 70-foot-long wooden ramp to promote ADA-compliant accessibility to the upper deck area.

One of the last and most important elements of this new playground area is the construction of the “fall zone,” which is the 6-foot-wide area surrounding the Tree Deck that is meant to provide a safe place for children to fall into/onto without serious injury. There are three different options being considered for what goes into the fall zone: (a) 12” of wood chips, (b) 6” of recycled rubber bits, (c) poured-in-place rubber surfacing. While experts believe that these 3 options can provide similar levels of safety, they vary tremendously in terms of accessibility and cost. Our Board of Trustees will be reviewing these options at their upcoming meeting in January. If you have any experience with or knowledge of these playground surfaces that you think would be helpful for board members to know, please share your knowledge with them at your earliest convenience.

Facilities Team members are Kevin Fritsche, Larry Lile, Patty Daus, Kevin McKiernan, Lynn Hostetler, Jeremiah Long and Jeff White.