Sandy Osborne was sitting in her Baker City home last Sunday feeling sorry for herself.

Osborne, 75, had broken her left knee a few months ago while at work. The injury prevented her from going to church and working on her house.

Weeds had begun to envelop the garden, paint had chipped off the siding and some of the wood was becoming dilapidated.

But it came as a complete surprise to Osborne when a van pulled up to her house that Sunday, July 23, to tell her that she had been selected by the Southwest Church of Christ in Tigard to be its next service project.

This is the 10th consecutive year the Southwest Church of Christ has worked with the Baker Valley Church of Christ to select a parishioner in need.

At 9 a.m. on July 24, a group of 55 people, mostly teenagers, arrived at Osborne’s house to begin helping in any way they could.

“I was completely dumbfounded,” she said. “I knew about this group beforehand, but I never expected that I would be the one they helped.”

The service project is led by Walt Murfin, who owns a paint contracting company called Cut No Corners. He helps supervise all of the kids, who had to raise money to make the trip to Baker City.

“If they want to come and help out, they have to plan for it,” Murfin said. “Every single kid here helped raise at least $350 by fundraising through the church.”

However, there were some exceptions. Dawson Clark, 13, who lives in Baker City heard about the service project, and contacted the church asking if he could help out.

See more in the July 31, 2017, issue of the Baker City Herald.