Ace Contracting began work on July 19, 1976 making this year our twenty-fifth in business. We are proud of having survived so long and we are grateful to all the people who have entrusted their projects to us. Look for the unique, commemorative, highly sought-after Anniversary T-shirts as well as other events designed to mark what we feel is a special milestone.
Charitable Contributions
In keeping with the next-to-the-last item on our Mission Statement, Ace has made charitable contributions to the following organizations in 2000:
Unfortunately several of these contributions were memorials in honor of friends who are no longer with us. Children, Youth & Family Services appears more than once because we are on the Board of Directors of this fine non-profit organization, one of Charlottesville’s oldest. The AIDS Services Group and Wiseman House are also favorites of ours, among other reasons because Judi is on their staff and is the administrator of Wiseman House.
Christmas in April
April 2001 will mark the second year in a row that Ace has participated in Christmas in April. This is a national non-profit organization that brings together skilled workers and volunteers for one day in April in a concentrated effort to make significant repairs to a large number of homes. These homes are in need of a new roof, a wheelchair ramp, a safer porch, a long-overdue paint job, etc. and their owners could not manage these repairs without Christmas in April. Both years we have contributed carpentry labor and supervision to two of the targeted projects in Charlottesville.
Haiti
In March of 2001 Ace Contracting joined several other local construction firms to assist Building Goodness Foundation with their efforts to improve the lives of the inhabitants of Fort Liberte, Haiti. Two Ace employees were included on a crew that spent one week in northern Haiti helping to build a much-needed medical clinic. Tim Painter and Gary Meek had to begin preparations in the fall of 2000, applying for passports, attending orientation meetings, getting a series of vaccinations and prophylactic medications and, finally, collecting the tools and gear they would need during their stay. It turned out to be a brutal, heart-wrenching week. The weather was much hotter than had been predicted, the work load was much greater than had been anticipated, and the living conditions of the Haitian people were far worse than anything our guys were prepared for. The vast majority of the people living in Fort Liberte suffer from mal-nourishment, terrible sanitation, poor medical care and extreme poverty. Gary and Tim shocked and upset all of us with their stories. Their experience casts a new perspective on the sheltered and privileged lives most of us lead in central Virginia and has caused Ace to consider re-wording our Mission Statement to include contributions to the world community as well as to the local. It’s impossible to become aware of the dramatic disparity between “us” and “them” without reflecting that we are all “us.”
