Did I see the Easter Bunny last Tuesday, April 4?
Serving The Colorado Community | ABT Cares
It’s Always a Snowy Day….
Tuesday April 4t, the weather was cold and snowy. The man in the red University of Utah Beanie was not the Santa Claus as the weather would suggest, nor the Easter Bunny.
It was Paul Archer, owner of Automated Business Technologies, headquartered in Centennial, CO. His elves were the ABT Centennial operations team, community members from the Centennial Faith Council, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints’ Just Serve Committee.
Last Tuesday, as luck would have it the coldest and snowiest day of the week, a truck with 25 pallets, over 1,600 boxes of food arrived at Mission Hills Church, in Centennial. The truck contained rice, beef stew, tomato soup, diced tomatoes, pears, apple sauce, macaroni, shelf-stable milk, pancake and waffle mix, and dish detergent. Paul was there with a small group of volunteers, some executives in suits and ties, to unload.
Serving Colorado’s Hungry
At Mission Hills Life Center they had expected to back the 54-foot truck, sent from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Welfare Square in Salt Lake, to the Life Center’s dock and then unload the pallets with a pallet jack. Unfortunately, they could only get the truck to within about 3 feet of the dock, so they had to unload 960 boxes by hand. What they thought would take 25 minutes of light work took two hours of heavy lifting. Many thanks to those who helped! They were told the Life Center had never had a truck that big come to the center to unload.
After unloading half of the truck by hand, Paul took the rest to Automated Business Technologies’ local warehouse where Tyler Schenk, warehouse manager, and Tim Hood, Director of Operations, helped unload and separate pallets for delivery to other local food pantries. ABT delivery-driver Jason McCabe also offered to help. He was already desk bound for the day, as Paul had sacrificed the company truck to deliver the remainder of the food.
As driver for the day, Paul set off, hoping to deliver pallets of food to pantries across Centennial. First stop: the Salvation Army in Centennial where a small group of volunteers from the Church of Jesus Christ of LDS, their local congregation, Orchard, meet him and with the leadership of the Salvation Army Staff they unloaded boxes of applesauce, shelf stable milk and other non-perishable items for their food bank.
Then, back to ABT warehouse where with a call, Tyler and Tim jumped into action and reloaded the truck with five more pallets. Next: off to a non-denominational food pantry headquartered at the Littleton Church of Christ, in Centennial. One more return trip to ABT and finally to Saint Mary’s Parish Pantry, in Englewood.
JustServe Colorado
A special thanks to Janice Barber, JustServe Specialist, Church of Jesus Christ of LDS, who spent the entire day in the freezing cold weather unloading boxes at each church location. She and Amy Johnson, another JustServe Specialist, also helped organize volunteer and coordinate timing with recipients at food pantry, not an easy task because of the changing conditions.
I’m not sure when Paul last drove the delivery truck, I’m thinking it had been a while, but he was sure jolly as he delivered these loads. I even got into the action, learning to operate the gate lift. I’m ready in a pinch if Jason needs a copilot on his next ABT Cannon, HP, or Kyocera delivery.
Although Paul and I would love to thank each of them, it would be impossible in this blog to thank all the people in the community who made this happen. Nor, do they want the recognition and thanks. They prefer to quietly serve. That describes Paul’s wife Carol.
For the past two years with Carol as the catalyst, Carol and Paul have spent nearly every other weekend distributing food to people living with housing insecurity in the streets of Denver Metro Area, Aurora, Englewood and Centennial.
Carol has personally made literally thousands of sandwiches over the last year and delivered them to the various centers in the area. As a matter of fact, while Paul was driving pallets of food, Carol was delivering sandwiches to hotel in Centennial. At this hotel, about two miles from Automated Business Technologies, the Salvation Army provides housing for about a dozen families with children living without permanent housing in Centennial. Since she became aware of the little group, Carol has been delivering sandwiches to these families weekly.
I know both Paul and Carol would prefer I did not write this post, but there is so much division and bad news on the internet today, I wanted to spread the good. The ABT family lead by the Archers and most importantly the organizations they partner with, are just some of the good people–doing good–making the greater collective whole.
I would love to hear your good news! Please interact.
To the dozens of people who participated last Tuesday, and to all of you doing good in our Colorado community, THANK YOU!
