LJWorld.com / Volunteers help beat snow

Archive for Friday, January 7, 2005

January 7, 2005

Most people consider snow shoveling a tiresome chore, but Wendy Leedy found a spark of pleasure in it this week.

Ice drapes from road signs at Highways 56 and 59 on Thursday.<br>
<a href=
"http://etc.lawrence.com/galleries/AftertheWint/6900_lores.html"
target="_new" onclick=
"window.open('http://etc.lawrence.com/galleries/AftertheWint/6900_lores.html','Photo','height=650,width=550,screenX=10,screenY=10,' + 'scrollbars,resizable'); return false;">
<img src="http://www.ljworld.com/art/icons/icon_photo.gif" border=
"0" alt="photo"> Photo Gallery: After the Winter Storm</a><br>

Ice drapes from road signs at Highways 56 and 59 on Thursday.
Photo Gallery: After the Winter Storm

"She opened the door just to say ‘Thank you,'" Leedy said. "‘Thank you' is worth more than anything nowadays."

Leedy, 28, shoveled ice and snow Wednesday and Thursday from an elderly east Lawrence neighbor's walkways as part of a partnership between the city and Roger Hill Volunteer Center.

"If I have trouble scraping my sidewalk, then you're going to have trouble walking on my sidewalk," said Lisa Patterson, the city's communications coordinator.

Volunteers are expected to help throughout the winter and are obligated only to clear the sidewalk and a walking path from the house to the street.

Through a partnership between the city and the Roger Hill Volunteer Center, a dozen volunteers are clearing ice and snow for 15 elderly or disabled people this winter.

Volunteers can be matched with one or more people, usually someone who lives on their street or in their neighborhood.

The program still needs at least five volunteers in east, central and southeast Lawrence. For more information, call the center at 865-5030.

"We don't have snowplows for sidewalks, so we're looking for people power to do that," Patterson said.

The city's snow removal ordinance requires homeowners or tenants to remove snow and ice from the public sidewalk that runs through their property within 24 hours of the end of each storm.

If a stretch of sidewalk is the subject of a complaint, residents can be fined $20 for each day the snow or ice isn't removed within five days.

There were other storm problems requiring cleanup Thursday in Lawrence: fallen branches. Ice-heavy limbs that fell from trees throughout town created difficulties for many.

Wendy Leedy, Lawrence, shovels snow and ice off an elderly neighbor's driveway Thursday in east Lawrence. The Roger Hill Volunteer Center and the city of Lawrence have teamed to provide community volunteer service to the elderly and disabled. Leedy is a volunteer in the program.
Photo Gallery: After the Winter Storm

David Morrissey, manager of Roger Hill Volunteer Center, said he did not know of any programs where volunteers removed branches and trees from yards of elderly or disabled people.

Awakened overnight Tuesday by a crash that "sounded like the whole house was coming down," 88-year-old Berdine Harris went to investigate.

"Boy, it sounded terrible when it came down," she recalled Thursday as she viewed her back yard and roof, which were littered with fallen branches and ice-covered twigs. "I just went back to bed. It wasn't for me to fix it."

Fortunately, one of Harris' sons will come today to gather the branches at her home near Kansas University.

"I knew I couldn't do anything," she said. "It was pretty noisy, 'cause I'm a sound sleeper and it woke me up."