It’s been a few weeks since our clean-up day, and I’m still riding high from it. Every time I go up to St. Ignatius I am struck but how nice it looks – certainly the best it’s been in the entire time I’ve known it. What we accomplished exceeded our expectations for the day, and I’m so grateful for everyone’s amazing work.
I love the building in all its incarnations – there’s a particular quiet resonance when you’re working at the building by yourself, or the eerie stillness when people are ghost hunting. But I also love the feeling of the building when it’s full of people working together- there’s an alive-ness, the energy of a place waking up again.
We definitely have to do it again soon – we’re eyeing an early fall date and will let you know when we get something on the calendar.
We filled an entire 40-yard roll-off dumpster with 9,347 lbs trash and construction debris! We also loaded a trailer with 3,200 lbs of metal waste, and hauled out multiple trailers and truckloads of yard waste totaling almost 6,000 lbs. Whew!
About 25 people come, and many people stayed for all five hours. A few times it looked like the clouds were about to open up, but the rain held off until later in the day (and probably contributed a little to the final weight of that roll-off dumpster 
).
Thank you to everyone who came! A very special thanks to people who came from out of town – Moscow and Pullman, Spokane, Deer Park, and as far as Kennewick and Napavine (South of Olympia).
Nate, proprietor of Humble Burger in Moscow, donated lunches for the volunteers and drove them out himself on a busy University of Idaho Parents’ Weekend Saturday.
And to our “Day 0’s”, Bri and Katrina and Nancy and Val, who have been helping to clean up the building faithfully every year- even before this year’s community clean-up. AJ did heroic work in preparation to make the day a success, and ran a Bobcat on the day to multiply our efforts.
Everyone who came contributed mightily, and the day was a success because of you. I’m just a bit annoyed at myself for not getting a photo of everyone together on the front lawn, but it’s something to remember for next time!
Yours in gratitude and preservation,
Austin & Laura
It’s wonderful to see a community try to save old buildings and preserve history. Please be careful as these old structures are often full of asbestos-containing materials and paint/paint dust containing heavy metals.
Thank you for your support, and for following along with the project!
Always a good reminder to be careful about hazardous materials! A lot of the asbestos has already been remediated but lead paint is everywhere in the building, so we did a training for the folks working inside.