Dear WCC neighbors,
If you live in the neighborhood or drive/walk by the Woodfords Church building regularly, you may have seen lots of trucks in the parking lot and even heard the hum of a generator. Here’s what happened… Monday, October 12 the building was closed for Indigenous Peoples’ Day. On Tuesday, when Louise, the Building Manager, came into the office, she noticed that the building was cold and the heat wasn’t on. She was just about to go down the stairs to the boiler room when she saw that the stairs were covered in water and it was almost at the point of spilling out into our meeting hall and/or Stages theater. It seems there was a malfunction with one of the tanks connected to our very old furnace and the furnace room was under water to the ceiling. Not only did it impact the furnace and oil tank, but most of our wiring in the building runs through that room. We turned off all the electricity and the water and effectively closed the building to all use.
On Thursday of that week we pumped out over 30,000 gallons of water and proceeded to dry out the boiler room so we could bring in furnace people, electricians, plumbers, etc. The building is currently considered a construction site while we replace breaker boxes, much of the wiring, and figure out the heating challenge. We are planning a temporary fix to heat the building over the winter so our pipes don’t freeze. Also, we will be working on installing a much more efficient and flexible heating system to last us many years into the future.
In the meantime, some staff members have moved to working completely at home and others come in throughout the week to take care of mail, meetings with workers, etc. Workers will be in and out of the building daily as we build back our systems. Our mission partners (tenants) who had been back in the building on a limited basis have all found new homes for the next few weeks or months.
It all sounds a bit dire, but now that we are over the shock and are moving forward with rebuilding in a way that will result in improvements, we are feeling energized. And, most importantly, because of the way we responded to COVID prior to this emergency, we have a robust, dynamic offering of online worship, programs, and events. Please take a look at our website (www.woodfordschurch.org) to see everything we are doing – from racial justice conversation groups to book club to spiritual direction to intergenerational worship. We know ‘church’ is not the building, but COVID has made us live that in an immediate and tangible way. And it has us thinking about all sorts of possibilities once we get back to whatever the new normal will be. And we hope that includes you. One of our favorite annual events is CornerFest and we look forward to celebrating together with our Woodfords Corner friends in fall of 2021.
We hope that all of you are staying safe these days and are finding ways to cope with the challenges of the times. As winter approaches, we invite you to take a look at what we offer and join us for an event or worship service. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the office at info@woodfordschurch.org.
Best wishes from Woodfords Church for a Happy Thanksgiving no matter how you celebrate this year.
Warmly,
The Woodfords Church Clergy & Staff