FAN Thanks Hope Christian Church Youth Volunteers

Dear Winchester Patch,

On behalf of Winchester’s Family Action Network (FAN), we are writing to express sincere gratitude to the 15 teenage volunteers from the Hope Christian Church, under the direction of Herb Wiebe, director of Ministry to Youth and Children, for their time and hard work in helping with the first phase of FAN’s McDonald Park Clean-up project.  

Historically each spring, FAN volunteers spend a day cleaning up several parks around town. This year, however, we added a new twist: we will focus on one park, McDonald Park, on Hill Street. Our goal is to not only clean up the area, but to really improve it, by planting, weeding, adding a sand digger, an infant swing, a child-sized picnic table and some other new park features.

These polite, hard-working, young volunteers enabled FAN to lay a majority of the groundwork for our project by devoting their Saturday to scrubbing the large play structure, clearing brush, pulling weeds, and removing trash. It is worth noting while all of these volunteers were in the midst of a 30-hour fast to benefit an orphanage in Haiti, they still managed to keep a smile on their collective faces while continually asking “what can I do next?” We’re certain that without their help, we would have needed an entire week to finish this task.

Phase two of the park clean-up will be taking place on Sunday, June 9 at McDonald Park and FAN is seeking volunteers from the community to help complete the park restoration. There will be plenty of tasks for all -- young and old -- to help make McDonald Park sparkle again, so bring perennials, garbage bags, gloves or shears and join us! If you can’t make it on June 9th, but are interested in making a donation to help us in our efforts, please visit the FAN website to learn how you can donate.

Thanks again to the Hope Christian Church, Herb Weibe and the 15 amazing volunteers, the McDonald Park improvements we have seen already are remarkable, making FAN even more encouraged about how much more of an impact we can make.

Sincerely,

The FAN Community Connections Team

Communityconnection@fanwinchester.org