About us
Ours is a simple, family effort to get neighbors in a small New England town to help each other prepare for almost certain household wood shortages throughout the upcoming cold winter.
Wood for Warmth grew out of the Congoran family’s Contoocook Carry Triathlon and its fund. The triathlon was started in 2002 to help two families build a skateboard park as a memorial to their respective son’s. Both died prematurely as teenagers in a tragic winter accident. Every year since, the Contoocook Carry has been dedicated to helping people in the villages of Contoocook and Hopkinton through the Human Services Department of the Town of Hopkinton. In 2008, we began the Contoocook Carry Fund that gave our residents who couldn’t run, paddle or bike in the Triathlon an opportunity to support these same goals. As a result of the September triathlon and its related fund, approximately $15,000 was raised. It was dedicated almost entirely to fuel assistance to our town’s residents who would be in need.
During the fall donation period, a few very generous residents donated cords of wood, delivered, to help less fortunate neighbors. At the same time, we were witnessing a general panic by many people who were watching the rapidly increasing price of a cord of firewood used to heat a home. Many had no idea how they would pay to heat their homes during the upcoming winter. But they did know that they would be heating with wood. It seemed imperative to us that at least two things happen: (1) we establish a wood bank and (2) somehow we needed to ask people to return to an older time in NH, when neighbors routinely checked on neighbors – and gave a hand when needed.
Thanks to Steve Clough, Asst. Superintendent of Public Works-Waste & Water, and Bob Davis, Solid Waste Facilities Supervisor, space was made ready at the Hopkinton-Webster Transfer Station for donations of wood and the stacking of split firewood. It was named the Sean Powers Wood Bank, after our beloved police officer that had been tragically killed in a traffic accident. Those residents who didn’t have the resources to get enough firewood to heat their homes would be able to use a voucher made available from Human Services Director to get firewood from the wood bank.
Next, word was spread by local newspaper articles (please see these links).
Concord Monitor article from this year 2011!
Throughout the area we needed neighbors to check on neighbors regarding wood supplies: first question would someone run low in upcoming months? Did some one need help with stacking or splitting? Did anyone have wood who could get it into 16” pieces and get it to the curbside for a volunteer pickup? And so was born the Wood for Warmth movement.
It then seemed best to pick a specific date on which volunteers could pick up that wood and get it into the wood bank. Using newspapers, emails, school flyers and the Town’s website, word of an upcoming volunteer day at the Sean Powers Wood Bank was circulated. The request was for volunteers who could truck in the donated wood, who could load and unload the trucks and who could assist with splitting and stacking wood at the wood bank.
The response was overwhelming, from people who prepared and stacked their wood curbside to the children and adults (and dogs) who helped haul it, to those who stood for hours splitting. At the same time, good people who had a truckload of firewood to give were gratefully connected with others who needed that help (through email and telephone). There it was – neighbors helping neighbors.
