It began like by accident. A minor every day matter many of us encounters. It was about weeds, yes weeds, taking over our yard on all sides. My wife, Lillie, and I had been able to deal with it with Roundup. But this year neither of us found ourselves physically capable of coping with those weeds.
Carolene Endersby, a friend, happened to mention we should contact Reverend Ron Fairbairn who was working with some kids trying to earn some money over the summer. I e-mailed the good pastor If you have kids available and that want to earn some money during the summer, we’d like to make arrangements to have them pull our weeds.
He emailed back I have given them your name and address and phone, they will be contacting you soon.
I had no idea who “them” were. Then Ron e-mailed I forgot to mention, there is no charge!!! You cannot pay them Sir.
No charge!
I thought, Why would these kids be willing to work in the hot sun to rid my yard of weeds and not be paid?
I couldn’t figure it out.
The answer came by e-mail from a man I’ve never heard of…Loyd Platson. He wrote:
I am responding to your request to have youth pull weeds at your house. We do have youth available to do this as well as other odd jobs that you may have. The youth work through the NyE Communities Coalition (NyECC) under a program geared towards helping them develop positive work related behaviors and attitudes. I coordinate the Youth Workforce Development Program for NyECC.
Fortunately I hadn’t deleted the e-mail from Mr. Platson from among the scores of e-mails I receive daily. I wondered, just what is this Youth Workforce Development Program for NyECC?
Then Tom Waters asked me if I had heard anything about my yard weeds yet. I filled him in. He offered to make a phone call, which I declined.
Then came a phone call from Ken Gonzales asking if he could come by and take a look at our yard to see what needed to be done. I didn’t know Ken either. He arrived, surveyed the yard, and informed me he had a crew of kids scheduled to undertake the project two days later.
I awoke early (around 6:00 a.m.) and frankly had forgotten about Ken’s visit. I stepped onto our patio. I saw a man clipping bushes. He was part of the work crew. I looked around and saw 14 people all over the front, back and side yards quietly and diligently removing our weeds. I was absolutely shocked and amazed. They had been at it since 5:00 a.m.! By 11:00 a.m. the weeds were gone.
The work crew consisted of: Ken Gonzales (supervisor), Terri Gonzales (supervisor), David Balien, Rocky McLennan, Alex Glynn, Brian Bostain, Reece Trstensky, Jeffrey Yang, Justin Yang, Jonathan Isaccks, Andrew Gonzales, Stephen Yang, Daniel Liebig and Sharina Sheppard. A stellar group exemplifying there is positive hope in our Pahrump community.
The whole thing is part of the Nye Community Coalition. Remember Hillary Clinton’s book, It Takes A Village? That the concept is alive and well in Pahrump.
Lillie’s and my humble thank you goes out to Carolene Endersby, Ron Fairbairn, Loyd Platson, Tom Waters, Ken Gonzales, all those kids in the Youth Workforce Development Program for NyECC.
You are welcome to read more about this and other matters on the Nye-Gateway to Nevada’s Rurals blog at http://nyegateway.com. You can also follow me on Twitter at http://twitter.com/Featheriver.
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