Happy 2025, TIS supporters!
I’d like to tell you about an event that happened last week at TIS’ singles shelter, Evelyn’s Place, that warmed my heart and restored my slightly wavering faith in human nature.
I don’t know if you’ll remember how frigid the temperatures were on Thursday the 23rd, but while several staff members and I were touring His Hope Ministries’ shelter and offices in Denton, I received a call (several, actually) that we had a pipe burst in the basement of Evelyn’s Place, and that the Easton Volunteer Fire Department arrived at the scene, evacuated the home, and cut off all of our utilities. Our maintenance manager, Will Steele, let me know that it was a pipe in our tank-and-pump fire suppression system.
I immediately called John Parish, jr., the owner of Talbot Fire Protection and asked him to come check out the issue. He dropped what he was doing, and made it there in about 45 minutes, as all the water in our (5) 500 gallon tanks emptied into the basement. I called Tom Diem, of the Town of Easton building department, and he let me know all of the things that would have to occur in order for us to allow our 9 guests to reoccupy the shelter. Since all of our utilities had been shut off, I was extremely fearful that if we didn’t get this all addressed in one day, that we would have to put our guests into hotel rooms and would probably need to repair a lot of other frozen pipes, since we had no heat in the house.
Tom sensed my anxiety, and he made it his business to stay at 109 Goldsborough Street all day to ensure that the appropriate inspector arrived just as soon as each utility had been addressed by the pertinent contractor. As each contractor arrived and repaired the situation they were responsible for, building inspectors arrived right when we needed them to approve the work that had been done. We actually discovered, through all this, that we had a compromised pipe going from our gas regulator into the building (that could have turned into a disaster), which was redirected as well.
There was a LOT of Divine Intervention / Star Alignment happening for us that day! At the end of the day, once we had the ‘all clear’ from the Fire Marshal to have our guests return to their temporary home, Tom Diem went back to his office to complete paperwork, and we continued cleanup and refilling our tanks.
I want to thank each and every person who dropped what they were doing and came to the rescue of TIS and our guests: Tom Diem and the entire building department at the Town of Easton, Mike and Stacy of Tom’s General Services, the volunteer firefighters who came to ensure that our properties were safe until the crisis was over, Marty Keefe, the fire marshal on duty, the techs from Easton Utilities, and the electricians from Travers Electric.
Also my deep gratitude goes out to Albert Urbina—TIS volunteer and HVAC consultant, DJ Shiflett of Perfect Temp who talked us through some tricky boiler issues, and Steve Smith, jr. of Blue Water Plumbing, who settled our boiler issues and repaired some burst pipes in the heating loop. And John Parish, jr. from Talbot Fire Protection stayed until after 8:00 that night, sweeping water into a drain and filling the 5 tanks.
Without the concerted effort of these wonderful community members, TIS would have had an even bigger struggle with this event, and our vulnerable guests would have been displaced. And of course, my thanks go out to my fantastic Team TIS staff who all stayed calm and flexible as we navigated the crazy day, as well as our guests who didn’t grumble at being displaced to Easton’s Promise for the afternoon.
I love our community!!! I know we will be dealing with some extra financial challenges from this, but the fact that everyone came together with camaraderie and kindness makes my heart swell with joy.
-Julie Lowe