Lucy Bultmann of Durango is usually at church on a Sunday morning, but this Sunday, she was framing a house.
It was hot, and the hammer got heavy, but Bultmann said she enjoyed working for a cause.
That cause was Love Out Loud, a collaboration of Christ the King Lutheran Church and First United Methodist Church of Durango working to help their neighbors.
For the last four years, volunteers – this year 300 – devoted their time to organizations or individuals who could use a hand.
Bultmann, with more than a dozen others, was working on a Habitat for Humanity home in Bayfield for a single mother of six.
“It’s just something I want to do” she said. “We just like giving back.”
The whole idea, said volunteers, is to take church outside to help.
Larry Turner and 15 others were working on the Manna Soup Kitchen grounds on Sunday, spreading mulch, assembling furniture and pulling weeds.
He said they want to show people they are loved and cared for.
“Instead of bringing them to church, we’re going to them,” he said.
Habitat’s executive director Rachel Taylor, who was also pounding nails on Sunday, called it “faith in action.”
“We share a similar mission,” she said about Love Out Loud, “to be compassionate and do good work. This is a great way to do it.”
There were more than 40 projects, from framing a house to visiting nursing homes. Some removed litter around city parks, and others gardened at elementary schools. They helped vision-impaired residents clean their homes and wrote thank-you cards to police, firefighters and teachers.
Beth Stelz helped organize LOL and said volunteers ranged from 3 years old to 92 years old. Some were retired, while others were teenagers, reading stories and playing games with children living in affordable housing.
Many just showed up, unaffiliated, for the chance to do something for others. Stelz worked with four, grounds keeping for a woman struggling to tend her 20 acres in the county.
“She couldn’t thank us enough,” she said. “I think people are surprised with what all we are willing to help out with.”
She also said LOL works both ways.
“(Saturday) I helped paint an apartment where there was this little 4-year-old girl,” she said. “We hung out all day. That was really precious. I was helping her, but I was learning from her as well.”
Bultmann agreed.
“In the long run, you feel good doing it,” she said.
On Saturday, Marilyn Johnson participated in what was called the “outing for those that don’t get out much.” She and other church-goers took elderly residents living at Sunshine Gardens to the Center of Southwest Studies at Fort Lewis College and then for a picnic lunch.
On Sunday, she also helped with the framing.
“I just like this,” Johnson said. “Yesterday, I was serving lunch to people, and today I’m a carpenter.”
bmathis@durangoherald.com
