Free Construction Help Stems from Entrepreneur’s Faith
By David Dunbar
Giving back is something Marcus Wenger has become an expert in. He’s the owner and general manager of Bay State Outdoor Personia, a Bellingham company that constructs and installs custom sheds.
“Community involvement gives us an opportunity to bless others with our successes,” he explained in a recent “Core Values Speech”. “We are dedicated to giving to those less fortunate periodically during scheduled days of charitable giving.”
Four times a year, Wenger and his team of 25 or so designate a “day of charitable giving” and they will work on half a dozen projects that day.
“One of our crews used their skills to repair a shed with a roof that was ready to collapse. The thankful homeowners now have a better insulated and weather-resistant backyard workshop and storage space,” he reports on the company’s website. “We also helped clean up and rebuild another neighbor’s roadside landscaping to prevent further damage to their house caused by passing traffic. At an elementary school’s playground, one of our lead carpenters built a needed platform adaptable for children with special needs. Yet another crew traveled to a home damaged by recent storms, where they cleared out tree brush and even repaired a pigeon coop.”
Lenny Brooks, who turned 91 last month, needed help with an old shed at his home. So, he called Wenger. “Marcus and his team came out and put a brand-new roof on my 40-year-old shed. Excellent! Perfect job!”
Wenger does work for the elderly, disabled, vets, and “people who don’t have the means to get it done any other way.” He continues, “A lot of the people we help have helped others in the past or are helping someone now.”
Bay State Outdoor Personia is a “faith-based company” says Wenger. And a passage from the Bible he quotes is from Proverbs: “Whoever despises his neighbor is a sinner, but blessed is he who is generous to the poor.”
“We’ve been doing this for a couple of years now,” Wenger recalls. He estimates that the total cost of the projects, which his company pays for, is in the range of $40,000 to $50,000 per year.
“My team and I are blessed financially, and we talked about ways we could give back, return the blessing” he says. “We wanted to make a difference personally.”
“You guys are the best way to give back,” writes Facebook poster Paul Rogers. “We love our pool house and loved the experience with all the crew that worked on it from start to finish.”
If you have a need, you can call Wenger at (508) 883-4043. If you’d like to know more about his company, then visit www.outdoorpersonia.com
