A new community service program from the city of Allen is connecting citizens in need of home repair with service groups willing to help. The program – called Live.Love.Allen. – is run through the city’s code enforcement department, which passes along information about the project to homeowners with houses in need of work, but who can’t do the repairs themselves for physical or financial reasons. Live.Love.Allen. began with a two-month pilot program starting in August that included two organizations: Chase Oaks Church and Living Life Church. The number of groups taking part has since grown to include the First Presbyterian Church of Allen, Greenville Oaks Church of Christ, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Allen Ministerial Alliance and the First United Methodist Church of Allen. “By expanding the number of groups, we were able to expand the number of projects,” said executive assistant to the city manager Rebecca Vice, who runs the program. Together, those groups have completed 14 projects, ranging from cleaning up brush and overhanging trees to repairing leaning fences. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints repaired a resident’s roof that was leaking and collapsing just before Winter Storm Cleon hit the area. “They swooped in and came to the rescue,” Vice said. “I’m talking about hours before the ice storm came through. It was pretty incredible. They actually storm-proofed their roof to help get them through the storm.” The ice storm provided a new focus for the program and a new set of projects for the volunteer groups. Vice said the Live.Love.Allen. program was put on hold and the service organizations taking part were asked to help residents clean up storm debris instead. The groups have been helping clean up debris for the past month. “Now it was a matter of using our city resources to get the storm debris cleaned up,” Vice said. “For people who weren’t able to take care of their storm debris and get it out to the curb in time for pickup, we were able to leverage our relationship with those volunteer groups and say, let’s slow down with the Live.Love.Allen. projects.” The program, which launched three months ago, is still in the early stages and there are still improvements to be made, according to Vice. The focus for the moment will be to track everything the participating groups do for residents so they can be properly recognized, she said.
Posted on: Fri, 17 Jan 2014 15:24:43 +0000
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