For this mowing season, the Building and Grounds Committee (B&G) again plans to handle the mowing using the same approach as last year, which will avoid us having to contract out the mowing and save about $3,900 in the budget. With activities starting to pick up from the COVID-19 virus lockdown, we feel we can include volunteers from the congregation in our mowing plans. We will be taking recommended virus precautions for volunteers. But we want to point out that the mowing is mostly a solitary activity.

Our plan is for the B&G Committee to handle the mowing on a rotating basis with some help from the congregation. B&G Committee members will mow 3 weeks of each month, and the 4th week plus sometimes the 5th week will be handled by a different volunteer from the congregation. This approach will spread the work so each committee member will mow about once a month, and each congregational volunteer would mow just one time during the season. Our approach will keep everyone's work commitments reasonable.

The areas to be mowed include the church yard (bounded by the driveway and the parking lot) plus the yard around Nielsen House. The southern field at the rear of our property and the west side of the parking lot are excluded and will be mowed separately by the B&G Committee members.

We got a zero-turn riding mower about 3 years ago, which can be used for almost all of the mowing.

The mower’s cost was totally funded by a very generous donation from Gary and Ruth Rusk, plus a generous donation from John and Lynn Foreman. For a few small, tight areas, which the zero-turn mower cannot handle, we then use a self-propelled push power mower. If you are not familiar with using a zero-turn mower, we will give you some brief training for about 15 minutes that gets you familiar enough with the mower to comfortably mow the main parts of the yard. You will still trim the edges of the yard with the self-propelled push mower. Using a zero-turn mower is fun and allows the mowing to be done in about half the time. But, some people prefer to use the push mower to mow the entire yard instead of the zero-turn mower.

We would like to get 1 or 2 volunteers from the congregation each month to mow one time in the season. The mowing season runs from April through early November. But this year volunteers from the congregation only will be needed beginning in the last week of April through October. Three of those months will contain 5 weeks and require 2 volunteers, so we need a total of 10 volunteers.

Please consider volunteering to mow one time this season. To get scheduled, contact Bob Keith at [email protected] or 740-369-1919. You also can contact Bob if you have questions or would like more information.

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