A Miracle Effort: Neighbors, Friends, Businesses J

The house is filled with packing supplies and moving boxes. The volunteers collect and sort through three decades of a family’s life, wrap items in paper, pack them in boxes and ask, “Where should this go?” Cleaning supplies litter the kitchen counter and table. Small shapes of dust hidden for years under furniture have appeared around the house like farmers’ fields across a landscape.

It is cold inside the home but colder outside. With temperatures in the mid-20s, the 25-mph winds make standing outside feel more like 10 degrees. But the garage, driveway and front porch are lined with more boxes waiting to be filled or moved, and the only compensation the volunteers may get is when coffee and donuts are brought in.