Saturday, January 1, 2011

Whittier church appeals to community to help pay for $10,000 plumbing repair Read more: Whittier church appeals to community to help pay for $10,000


From California-

A 48-year-old rotted pipe is throwing a $10,000 monkey wrench into the soup kitchen at St. Matthias Church, which provides hot meals to more than 100 homeless people every weekday afternoon.

The water line that runs from the church's kitchen to the men's restroom backed up last week, prompting officials to shut off the water supply and call in a plumber, said facilities manager Stan Jamieson.

As it turns out, a portion of the water line had "completely rotted out on the bottom," Jamieson said - and repairing it is expected to cost about $10,000.

That pretty much taps out the church's savings for emergencies, Jamieson said. That's why the church is appealing to the community to help pay for the repairs, which are expected to be completed over the next week.

On top of that, the church can't make its usual hot meals for the homeless people who flock to the soup kitchen between 3 and 4 p.m. every weekday.

"We've had to throw together sandwiches and potato chips for meals," said Jamieson, adding that they serve an average of about 115 people every day.

"Today, some of our crew took stuff home to cook up hot meals, and they'll bring it back later," Jamieson said. "But until it's fixed, we can't use our kitchen."

Agustin Espinoza, owner of Advance Quality Plumbing, said repairing the water line has been "tough because we had to dig to get to the line, and these are concrete floors - it was hard breaking the concrete."

Read more:

http://www.whittierdailynews.com/news/ci_16981955#ixzz19molYKxy

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