One of the more interesting pieces of history we've found at Five Loaf House was just discovered last Saturday. While removing a ceiling on the second floor, Homer Argot came across this February 1921 catalogue from Victor Records. Tune in to channel 13 tonight at 5:00, 6:00, or 10:00 for their update on the work at Five Loaf House, including interviews with some of our dedicated TOMEC food pantry volunteers!
One of the exciting things about Five Loaf House is that it is intended to bring together people and resources from all over our community in the name of serving others to the glory of God. However, we realize that Five Loaf House represents some unique collaborations, and it's easy to get confused about how all these organizations relate. Here's a chart we've put together to help clarify things: The Five Loaf House building is owned and operated by Pocono Lake Wesleyan Church. Monroe County Habitat for Humanity is generously acting as our contractor by organizing volunteers and making plans for our ongoing renovations. The Top of the Mountain Ecumenical Food Pantry stores and distributes food from Five Loaf House, but is a separate organization. The Food Pantry is administrated by the Top of the Mountain Ecumenical Council, which is a council of six local churches (Blakeslee United Methodist, Faith Lutheran, Pocono Lake United Methodist, Pocono Lake Wesleyan, St. Maximilian Kolbe Catholic Church, and Salem United Church of Christ).
Please keep this information in mind when making a donation. If you intend to support the work of the food pantry, please make your check out to "TOMEC Food Pantry." If you intend to support the construction and operation of Five Loaf House, please make your check out to "Pocono Lake Wesleyan Church" and designate that it is for Five Loaf House on the memo line. Five Loaf House cannot use food pantry funds, and vice versa. Pocono Lake Wesleyan Church is proud to partner with each of these churches and organizations in our mutual call to love our neighbors, and we're grateful for the many ways they've supported the work at Five Loaf House. So what comes next for Five Loaf House? As we mentioned in our last post, we have our permits for the work on the ground floor, the food pantry is settled in, and our volunteers are hard at work cleaning the kitchen. But Five Loaf House is a big building, and there's still much to be done! Phase 2 of our work will involve renovations on the second floor with the hope of providing transitional housing for families in need. Those plans are being developed, but there's more urgent work to be done first. Though we're using the building, our first phase of work isn't really complete until we've sealed up the outside of the building to prevent any water leaks. This means that we need to finish the vinyl siding on the second floor of the building, but in order to do that, we first need to replace the second floor windows. We're going to need 28 windows to wrap up phase 1. Our estimate places the average cost of each window and its required framing materials at $372 each, for a total of $10,416. In addition, we're estimating about $2330 for the materials needed to finish the siding. That gives us a total of $12,746 required to finish phase 1 and have the building ready for winter. 28 windows at $372 each = $10,416 That sounds like a lot of money, but here's the good news: once we've raised these funds, most of our big-dollar costs will be behind us. As we outlined in our last news post, by the end of phase 1 Five Loaf House will have a new roof, new siding, new windows, a new boiler, new plumbing, new electrical work, and a new water heater. We obviously still have lots of work to do on the second floor, but a lot of the big stuff is already done!
We need your help to finish this phase of work. Would you prayerfully consider whether you can help sponsor part or all of a window? The more work is done, the more we can serve this community! As you've heard us say many times, the goal of Five Loaf House is to be a place for each of us to be faithful with whatever resources we have, so that we can watch as God multiplies them for good. We haven't posted many updates recently because we've been busy! Phase 1 of our renovation is nearing an end due to the selfless generosity of many, many people. Bill Snell, our project coordinator, said that more than 200 regular volunteers have invested 6000 hours (a conservative estimate) into Five Loaf House, and the results speak for themselves. Here are some photos showing the transformation, or you can check out our history page for a longer video slideshow of the work over the last year. Mark Edwards, one of our extremely dedicated volunteers, provided us with a list of what all has been done:
All work completed to date brings the building into compliance with current commercial building code requirements, and requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act. On June 14th, 2014, we held our official open house in recognition of our volunteers. Because of their hard work, we have received our permits for the work we've done on the main floor, and Five Loaf House can begin to serve our community! The Top of the Mountain Ecumenical Food Pantry now calls Five Loaf House home, and they held their first distribution at Five Loaf House on June 9-10, 2014, serving over 500 people in our community.
We have a lot to celebrate, a lot to look forward to, and a lot to be grateful for! Work is still continuing, though, and we still need volunteers and donations. We'll post more information on our next steps soon, but for now, our volunteers are working hard to clean the kitchen and get its equipment in working order, as well as wrapping up what remains of Phase 1. Stay tuned for more! Stop by Five Loaf House today through Saturday from 10 am - 7 pm and Monday 10 am - 2 pm. We are having a sale of items from Ten Thousand Villages, as well as fair trade coffee, chocolate, and baked goods. Proceeds benefit Five Loaf House and artisans around the world. For more information on Ten Thousand Villages, check out tenthousandvillages.com. Here's just a portion of what we have available:
Tune in to channel 13's news tonight for their coverage of our Ten Thousand Villages sale.
Work is continuing at Five Loaf House! During our renovations we've come across a few bits of the building's history. From time to time we'll post photos of what we find.
Dr. Jo Anne Lyon is the General Superintendent of the Wesleyan Church. In her just-released video update on the activity of the Wesleyan Church, Five Loaf House was featured as an example of the church living under the guidance of the Holy Spirit! This is a great reminder that the work we are doing is more than just doing good deeds; it is a way of spreading the message that all things are made new in Jesus Christ! We want to express our gratitude to the folks at the Mount Pocono Walmart who came out in the cold to hang drywall at Five Loaf House yesterday. Your help was greatly appreciated!
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