Love Notes

As the world wakes up from its COVID fog, we realize that our homes have an abundance of deferred maintenance needs. Roofs, decks, gutters, driveways — and the list goes on. In the last six months we’ve improved our process of identifying issues and prioritizing repairs. We have a long way to go, but we are making progress. Many hands (and specifically-designated contributions) make this possible. Recently, Barbara Urbiel asked Tom Lehrer if he could find a couple volunteers to do some yard maintenance at our Mary Ann Van Elslander Home in Clinton Township. Tom is the nephew of our co-founder Annemarie Lopez and the Public Information Officer for Macomb County Executive Mark Hackel. Tom quickly found two volunteers — himself and Mr. Hackel. They did a great job on the shrubs and weeds and we are grateful. The end of the story is even more beautiful. When the work was done, the four residents — Mark, Marc, John and Frankie — thanked the two “maintenance” guys. Our resident Mark, who is ...

I wish I had the faith of James. A few months ago, we received a call from a prospective donor.  The family was planning to remodel their kitchen and wondered if we wanted their existing, perfectly-good kitchen cabinets and a few appliances. My first impression was – that is a nice gesture (especially since I had recently visited the Holy Family Home and saw their cabinets were in disrepair).  But how will we get the cabinets out of one house and then neatly installed in another?  To this weekend handyman, that sounded like a herculean task. But, the caller who is associated with Faith Works said that their volunteer group might be able to take care of the physical labor – and their team was capable of doing a fine job. My next thought was: what are the chances that those cabinets can be reconfigured into another home?  Slim. A day later, tape measure in hand, I went to the Holy Family Home in West Bloomfield and took some measurements. As always, the four residents ...