What goes on behind the scenes at In Our Backyard? How is everything going? I get those questions quite often, so in the next couple of articles, I wanted to highlight just how things happen and who makes it so.
Carol Norquist, longtime member of Central Lutheran Church, is our treasurer. Steve and I asked for her help when we first started In Our Backyard, telling her that we guessed she would only need to spend about eight hours a month volunteering as our treasurer. Boy, were we ever wrong! In addition to setting up our bank account, managing donations, keeping track of receipts for grants, and setting up payments for utilities, Carol does so much more.
Have you seen the lights gleaming in the windows? That’s in large part because Carol kept pursuing getting the electricity connected with Chugach Electric. Have you heard how warm and cozy the shower trailer is? Carol hounded Suburban Propane to get our large tank hooked up to the trailer. Now she is making sure we don’t get billed for the months it wasn’t hooked up. That’s a whole other story. Trash and Recycling? Carol talked Solid Waste Management into letting us get by with four garbage cans as opposed to a big dumpster outside of the fence. Dumpsters, as you may know, bring a whole other set of problems with them. The security cameras? Without Carol’s persistence with Guardian Security, we would still be waiting for the cameras to be mounted. And all the great Facebook posts? You got it, all done by Carol. She is our historian as well.
Carol doesn’t give up when things get tough. She is persistent. Carol is often the one that tells me, “Don’t worry. Things take time.”
When I hear a sermon that speaks about being a discipline of God, Carol comes to mind. She is doing the work of Christ and following in his footsteps. Thank you Carol.
Loaves and Fishes,
Julie, Chair