By Mark Wineka
mwineka@salisburypost.com
Five years ago, F&M Bank Chairman Paul Fisher attended a lunch at Rowan Helping Ministries to hear an update on the nonprofit agency’s work.
As always, Fisher said, he was impressed with the services RHM provided “and especially the dedicated staff and group of volunteers who made it all happen.”
“What did bother me that day,” Fisher said, “was the condition of their professional work stations.”
Fisher saw members of the staff using desks of all sizes. Some desks were missing legs and others didn’t have all their drawers. Employees sat in chairs of all different sizes, none particularly suited for them or their jobs.
In several offices, computers sat on boxes, not office furniture.
The conference room table was actually three old dining room tables covered by a large tablecloth.
“It all went downhill from there,” Fisher said of the rest of the conference room.
“I wondered how people could be so dedicated and still do their difficult job of meeting clients with monumental problems in such an atmosphere. How in the world did they keep their spirits up?”
Fisher said he was moved by the sheer determination and dedication of the staff and volunteers.
“I could tell they believed in their mission and purpose, and any monies were going to help the poor and challenged ó not for professional work space for themselves,” Fisher said. “They were busy giving out hope and not caring about their own circumstances.”
When he left that day, Fisher said he knew F&M had to do something. He called his executive assistant, Janet Haynes, and said he might have another job for her. Within a few days, she was project manager for a five-year, five-phase remodeling effort at RHM.
Fisher envisioned repainting the walls, putting down carpet and buying new desks, chairs, computer stations, cabinets, pictures and other accessories for the agency’s staff.
“Just by being in a professional work station could make them more efficient and, above all, feel professional and appreciated,” Fisher said.
“I was worried about job burnout and thought that an uplifting atmosphere would help.”
This summer, the bank completed the remodeling project by making over the office of RHM Executive Director Dianne Scott. In all, F&M had remodeled eight private offices, four interview rooms and the conference room, investing more than $50,000 since 2003.
F&M’s donation also was used as matching funds for $10,000 in 2007 to remodel four offices on the shelter side of the facility.
Over the length of the remodeling, Haynes worked closely with a design team from MacThrift Office Furniture in Charlotte.
As a way to celebrate the completion of the project, F&M donated 400 pounds of food to the RHM pantry as part of its Thanksgiving donations to three different food banks.
“The remodeling project at Rowan Helping Ministries was one of my favorite and most rewarding community projects I have ever been involved in,” Haynes said. “My goal was to give the employees a new space that was not only functional but one that was professional in appearance and provided them with the necessary tools to do their jobs more efficiently.”
Haynes said she loved getting to know the staff personally.
“It was really wonderful,” Tina Coble, Scott’s executive assistant at RHM, said of F&M’s contribution. “We really love it.”With the makeover, her work environment became more pleasant, she said. It was new, clean and organized. If staff members found they needed an additional shelf or cabinet later, F&M would provide it, Coble said.
Since the building opened in 1989, the RHM staff had furnished their offices and rooms with whatever hand-me-down items they could find or were offered to them by companies going through their own remodelings or closings.
Scott said the ministry has outgrown its building, but having the brand new furnishings designed to fit the workspaces have made things easier. She can’t say enough about F&M’s generosity.
“Paul thought clients ó and staff ó deserve to have a nice place,” Scott said. “… We always put others first.”