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One of the least known services EChO provides is our wood lot.
Every year, we provide about 100 cords of firewood to roughly 100 households in our mountain community who rely on wood to heat their homes.
It is one of those programs that quietly exists in the background. No headlines. No fanfare. But for the families who depend on it during a Colorado winter, it matters deeply.
And honestly, I still do not fully understand how it all happens.
People from around the community donate logs from their property. Sometimes after a tree comes down. Sometimes after clearing land. And somehow, those logs make their way to EChO.
Then something remarkable begins.
A team of volunteers, our unofficial lumberjacks, cuts those logs into rounds, splits them, stacks them, and prepares them for families to pick up and heat their homes.
It is a tremendous amount of work.
And yet, much of it happens almost entirely unseen.
There have been many times when someone has told me, “We just received a huge log donation at the wood lot.”
I will wander up there to take a look and see massive piles of logs stacked everywhere. The kind of pile where you think, “There is no way that’s disappearing anytime soon.”
And then I will come back a few days later.
And it is gone.
Not gone, exactly.
Transformed.
Now it is neatly split and stacked firewood, ready to warm someone’s home.
I honestly don’t always know when the volunteers show up or how many people it took. Sometimes it reminds me of the old story about the elves and the shoemaker.
You simply return and discover that the work has quietly been done.
It feels almost miraculous.
But maybe that is what many small rebellions look like.
Quiet acts of faithfulness that happen without recognition.
People showing up because they know warmth matters.
Because they know dignity matters.
Because somewhere in our community, someone will sleep better knowing they can keep the fire going through another cold night.
That is what hope looks like at EChO.
Not always dramatic.
Not always visible.
But steady, practical, and deeply human.
A wood splitter is a small rebellion.
And so are the volunteers who use it.
That spirit is exactly what our Rebels of Hope mid-year campaign is all about.
We are continuing toward our goal of:
100 Rebels of Hope
One hundred people stepping forward with a leadership gift of $2,500 to help sustain the countless quiet acts of care happening every day across EChO.
And many others giving in ways that fit their lives and circumstances.
Because every gift helps fuel this work, sometimes quite literally.
Become a Rebel of Hope today.
Help ensure that when winter comes, families in our community are not left out in the cold.
Become a Rebel of Hope →
Hope is a small rebellion.
And together, we keep choosing it.
With gratitude,
Dale Flanders
Executive Director, EChO
P.S. Behind every stack of firewood is a community that chose to care. Your gift helps make countless small rebellions like this possible every single day:
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