Heidi Farr, Facility Manager
Christ Church Denver has been blessed with a beautiful building and lovely grounds, and the Facilities team considers it a privilege to be able to maintain, improve and manage our property, both inside and out. The team this year included Heidi Farr, Liz Wolfert, Charlotte Wanberg, Bruce Dunn, Dave Prentice and Leo Datwyler.
building improvements
As in years past, the Facilities team worked on a wide variety of projects throughout the building, including cleaning carpets, painting, purging cabinets and storage areas, replacing corroded pipes, addressing fire safety and building access problems, and everything that comes along with maintaining a 48,000sf building built over the course of four different decades. Our goal is always to provide a safe, welcoming environment for anyone who comes in the doors, and we trust that our care and commitment is evident in the work we do.
west room clean-up
After four years of use as the workroom for the pipe organ upgrade, we are happy to have the West Room back in use as a meeting, teaching and rehearsal space. Relatedly, the Facilities team and pipe organ team worked together to clean out and organize a combined workroom in the church basement adjacent to the Youth Room. In addition to storage for tools, equipment and material, the workroom provides space to work on further pipe organ modifications, larger Facilities repairs, and other projects as they arise.
grounds improvements
November 2024 Cleanup Day. Pictured left to right: Gary Hard, Grace Farr, Liz Wolfert, Charlotte Wanberg, David Coats, and Mark Dafoe.
This year we had our north parking lot repaved and we are pleased to have a space that is well-drained, level, and weed-free. We also sealcoated the southwest parking lot, added numbers to all our entrance doors for easier navigation, and pruned back more of the landscaping that has been neglected over the years. We hosted three cleanup days in 2024, and over 50 parishioners of Christ Church stepped in to help with mulch, pruning, window washing, and more. At our July cleanup day, a team of volunteers replaced the decaying timbers in the retaining wall on the southwest corner of the building, and in November another group worked to prune back the lilac hedge that runs along Bates Avenue next to the preschool playground. We are thankful for Ian Horsky’s faithful fight against weeds, and for the ongoing commitment of the Facilities team to keep the grass mowed, the leaves raked, and the sidewalks shoveled.
Looking ahead to 2025, the Facilities team anticipates increased activity as the life of the church expands to include new services and fellowship opportunities. We are looking forward to working throughout the building to improve aesthetics, utility and comfort, and to continue tending and improving the exterior landscaping and hardscaping. We’ll be painting, pruning, cleaning and upgrading - and rolling with the (hopefully) occasional urgent repairs that keep our work interesting and rewarding.