Hot on the heels of having been granted historic landmark status, Center Street's Christ Lutheran Church has gotten a facelift courtesy of the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation's Labor Days of Caring project, headed by project coordinator Brittany Turner.

The Christ Lutheran Church's Council President, Chris Bollin, describes how this past Saturday went from a run-of-the-mill wheelchair ramp replacement into an entire "day of caring," which saw workers from several different area-unions work on various improvement projects.

"We had originally contacted Maurice Hinchey's office about help with the wheelchair ramp," recalls Bollin. "They had me contact Brittany [Turner], who set everything up through the unions to come down. They not only fixed the wheelchair ramp, but fixed gutters, helped paint and scrape, and they also did some work on the parsonage…then the village was also nice enough to come through and help us out by fixing the sidewalks in front of the church."

"It was very touching to see the unions come together and help out a church in a small community like ours," he says.

"For lunch, the congregation from the church had a barbecue for all the workers, so that worked out nice also," Bollin adds. "The only thing that put a stop to it was when it started raining."

Turner describes the project as a collaboration with the Ulster County Legislature that has so far identified over 25 community service projects across the county to which the Federation will send workers.

"The church was our first project, and we basically helped them with a lot of different maintenance issues that they were having around the church, so there was painting, repairs to their rain gutters, helping work on their handicap ramp, and a couple other different things," she says.

"I think what originally happened was they had wanted a new ramp — they were having problems with their ramp — and they wanted to it moved out from their building because puddles were freezing on it. A couple of our contractors went out and looked at it and realized that the problem wasn't the ramp, but it was the rain gutters themselves. From there it just ballooned and got bigger and bigger, so we figured, we would be there anyway, we might as well help with their paint, and deal with a couple other things that they needed, working on some steps, and some other things that they had.

"All the labor was donated, most of the materials were also donated from local businesses in Ellenville, and anything that wasn't donated, the Area Labor Federation covered," adds Turner.

Turner describes the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation (HVALF) as the regional arm of the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO. The HVALF covers seven different counties including Ulster.

As for other targets in the county for the Labor Days of Caring project's helping hands, Turner says that Ellenville is only the beginning, and she describes the process for identifying other community service endeavors the program will seek to aid.

"As I said, our list includes over 25 projects right now, and that's just from our first year, so we definitely are planning on expanding the program next year and accepting more projects," she says. "Obviously, we won't be able to get all 25 done before Labor Day, or even this year, but we are going to keep the list open. We worked with the Office of the Aging and also Social Services to identify some different projects among their constituencies, and then Congressman Maurice Hinchey also helped us identify a number of projects. We have some in Kingston, and the next one, I think, is probably going to be in High Falls, but they'll be all across the county. "And we're definitely open to doing another Ellenville project in the future," she adds.

If interested in nominating a candidate for a future Labor Days of Caring project, contact Brittany Turner at the Hudson Valley Area Labor Federation at (845) 567-7760, extention 12.

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