Today is caregiver Jackie’s birthday and you can wish her a happy birthday on Facebook. While Jackie was celebrating her day, I really felt like it was my birthday at the sanctuary because construction on “my” shed has begun!
At the Out of the Box 2011 auction in October, 16 people (in some cases, couples) donated towards my “adoption” and what I was really wanting, in my heart of hearts, was a shed to store all of the event set-up and tabling materials, merchandise and other various sanctuary stuff that has crept into the garage and the part of the house that J.B. and I rent from the sanctuary. I was dreaming kind of big, but Keith LaChappelle, Audrey & Jim Spencer, Jack & Sue Mulcahy, Max Carriveau, Jeani Goodrich, Julie Harding, Anika Lehde, Pam Lehnert & Marc Warner, Jessica Martinson & Lisa Cossette, Helen Payton, Dot & Allan Rothfus, Felicity Wood, Cathy Parker, Connie Robertson & Bill Lamm, and Barbara Boekholt gave towards my “adoption” and Jim Spencer even offered up his time and skills to build the shed.
And now it’s becoming a reality! Jim, who traveled all the way from Whidbey Island, Doug Bucklin and J.B. have spent the last two muddy and rainy days outside all day making my storage dreams start to come true. It has been especially heartwarming to see this happening and remembering Barbara Boekholt’s donation in particular. Barbara was Julie’s mom and she recently passed away. She was not well enough to attend the auction last year, but she sent Julie with a check just for my “adoption.”
This shed is no small-deal. We have a lot to store! It’s almost 200 square feet and it will have two windows (we’re using the windows that we removed from the chimp house (minus the caging) when we replaced them with chimp proof glass).
In the first photo below, you’ll noticed some very large logs. J.B. was also “adopted” at the auction and his project was to build new structures on Young’s Hill. Guess what those logs are for?!
Jim leading the crew with J.B. and Doug following instruction:
J.B. waiting for the word to start using power tools, Doug and Jim making sure things are level:
J.B. standing in front of the shed at the end of today:
J
Congratulations, Diana, on your new shed–what a nice gift from your friends! Look forward to seeing what kind of struct JB is going to put up for the chimps.
Happy Birthday to Jackie.
Looks nice, and it’s always good to have extra storage. 🙂 I hope all the other projects come along just as well.
Yay for Diana’s Shed!
Happy birthday to Jackie!
And thank you for remembering Julie’s mom. She was a super, super lady and I know she’s smiling somewhere today knowing her shed donation is going into action.
And a GIANT, HUGE, HEARTFELT thank you to Jim for this incredibly generous donation of your skills, tools and time. Wow, what an amazing volunteer and fabulous chimpanzee-friend. Three cheers for Jim and Doug!!!
Hooray!! It is looking wonderful! And I can’t wait to see what JB turns those logs into! It is so fun to see the auction go into action!!