By Claudia Watson

They are digging through their closets and drawers for old sheets, napkins, quilting cotton, and yes, even Brooks Brothers shirts, and within the first hour, they delivered.

The steady stream of people continues to unload stacks of colorful fabrics and elastic onto the front porch of Lydia and John Boesch’s home in Pinewild — now the command center for Operation Face Mask.

“To say the response has been astounding is an understatement of gargantuan proportions,” says retired Admiral Leighton “Snuffy” Smith, who serves as the president of the Pinewild Property Owners Association.

Spurred on by Lydia Boesch and a few home seamstresses, Smith sent out an email last Wednesday enlisting efforts of Pinewild residents to make face masks to help shield those at high risk to the exposure from the advancing COVID-19 coronavirus.

“It’s resulted in a tsunami of donated fabric and people offering to cut fabric and sew,” says Boesch, who also serves on the Pinehurst Village Council. FirstHealth of the Carolinas decided to allow donations of protective fabric masks for health care workers that are made by the community last week.

The DIY masks are no substitute for the high-grade N-95 masks, which are in short supply globally, and they are not a good as surgical masks, which are no longer plentiful. But the home-sewn masks offer some protection and free up surgical masks for health care workers and first responders who are at the highest risk.

Within hours of Smith’s email, Pinewild residents pulled together. They established a supply chain, production and fabrication units, and delivery operation. Boesch packages the fabric for the two-dozen “pattern cutters,” who then return fabric pieces to Boesch’s porch, where it’s available for the seamstress corps to pick it up.

Pinewild tapped Kathy Lannon as the “Needle Czar,” who collects machine needles from residents and distributes replacements for those seamstresses who experience an all-too-frequent needle breakage dilemma.

“The machines are running at full capacity, and it’s difficult to find needle replacements,” says Smith.

Lannon also handles sewing machine “match-ups,” between wanna-be seamstresses and those who have a sewing machine gathering dust.

Parked at their dining room tables and in their studio lofts, each the nearly 30 seamstress makes an average of 12-14 masks a day. Accompanied by the soft whirring of their machines, they are transforming their once-quiet homes into pop-up fabrication facilities.

“I have a sewing background and a basic Singer sewing machine and am more than happy to sew masks,” says Pinewild resident Armecia Medlock. “I’m in the higher risk group of people for the coronavirus, so volunteering outside of my home isn’t an option. I’m excited that I can volunteer in this way.”

Sunday, Boesch delivered the 300th Pinewild-made mask to a nondescript collection bin sitting outside the FirstHealth Fitness Center in Pinehurst. FirstHealth picks them up in the afternoon and sterilizes them before distributing. As of Tuesday, the total was up to 600.

Boesch says the Operation Face Mask team is all in, and its volunteer army growing and prepared to sew as long as the materials are available.
“The response of our community is more than uplifting and heartwarming,” says Smith. “It’s a clear demonstration of the spirit, generosity, and selflessness of our Pinewild family.”

Claudia Watson is a freelance writer with a Singer sewing machine to loan.

Article is reprinted with permission of The Pilot, Southern Pines, NC, 2020

A recent trend in landscape and gardening is creating a healthy micro-environment within the confines of the property. A micro-environment is a specific area within a landscape that differs in slight but measurable ways from the surrounding area. By noting differences in topography and exposure, and by eliminating non-native species of plants, a healthy and flourishing natural micro-environment can be created and easily maintained in most landscapes.

CAS-managed Woodcroft Community Association has formed the Woodcroft Ecological Friendly Landscape Committee (EFLC) with the help of resident Lynn Richardson. Richardson has been tending to her own micro-environments within Woodcroft for over twenty years, which feature mature native trees and understory plants, native wildflowers and naturally occurring plant species. She abides by the community covenants, which cite the need to “protect, maintain, and enhance the conservation of the neighborhood’s natural and scenic resources.”

Lynn teamed up with another Woodcroft resident, Leslie Fiddler, to co-chair the neighborhood’s Eco-Friendly Landscape Committee which was created by the Woodcroft HOA Board in 2019. Their mandate is to educate the residents about non-native, invasive species through bulletins and learning events, identify severe problem areas in the community, assist in planning for eradication projects utilizing volunteers and paid contractors, as well as planning landscape projects that incorporate native species that provide native habitat for native wildlife with focus on pollinators.

The EFLC presented a five-year plan that envisions a “landscape that reflects the Piedmont North Carolina’s ecological heritage.” As a result, in addition to the Board’s endorsement of the requirement that their landscaping company emphasize native species for future plantings, several residents have joined the EFLC to help remove non-native, invasive plantings around the community. This initiative at Woodcroft involves first removing invasive plants like the English Ivy and Japanese Stiltgrass. The work also involves reclaiming overgrown greenways, so that existing micro-environments can be re-vegetated by native plants suitable to those areas.

Woodcroft’s Eco-Friendly Landscape Committee’s work is an example of the effectiveness of the commitment to planting local in support of natural micro-environments, and also the benefit of using green initiatives to guide HOA policies and decisions. It demonstrates that any neighborhood can have a positive impact on native ecosystems by bringing neighbors together and educating residents.

The Woodcroft Community Association has over six miles of walking trails and is one of the oldest HOA’s in Durham. They currently have a $135,000 trail repaving project almost completed and are managed by T.R. O’Neill (CMCA , AMS), who is a licensed NC Real Estate broker and has been on the CAS-NC Regional Council for 2 years.

CAS acquired 24 new communities in 2019. These properties represent a cross-section of residential and commercial spaces throughout North Carolina. From large, gated, planned developments with amenities such as lakes, tennis-courts and golf, to multi-story condominium buildings, to commercial business parks, CAS has taken over management of properties with many different purposes. We welcome all of our new additions and value the confidence they have placed in CAS as their new management provider. Our new properties are listed below:

Summit Park HOA
Carolina Lakes POA
Garrett Farms
Kitts Creek Bungalows
Beckett Crossing
Brookgreen Forest
South Forest Business Park
Murray Hill Condominiums
Pirates Cove- Single Family
Pirates Cove- Townhomes
Bentwinds Bluffs
Meadow Villas
1300 St. Mary’s Condominiums
Sandy Springs Homeowners
Olive Chapel Park
Blalock Forest
Landings at Pine Creek Townhomes
Breezewood Condominiums
Willow Ridge
Perry Farms
Colonial Townes
Davis Square
Wedgewood Cottages
Mulberry Park

2019 was a year of growth at CAS with four new managers hired. We welcomed Carol Velez, Jennifer McAllister, Kathryn Bolton, and Robert Mercer. With a combined total of over 40 years of experience and multiple advanced degrees and designations this new group of accomplished managers will only add to the expertise offered by the CAS professional management team.

Carol Velez has an MBA, spent eleven years as a Large Scale Manager and Contract Administrator and was featured in a CAI year-end report. She has also received the honor of being internet published for a case study on ethics. After a career in pathology, in which she conducted over 5,000 autopsies and helped build profitable laboratories, she saw the role that a manager plays in a community and decided her skills would make for a great career transition. She hit the ground running with her first community, a 55+ condo community in Florida, and hasn’t looked back. Of working for CAS as a portfolio manager today, Carol says, “I love to come to work every day to experience all the new challenges, find ways to solve the issues and revel in the solutions that make our customers happy. I love working for CAS as a family-based company it allows me to feel as part of something bigger and I look forward to working here for a long time. There is a quote by Henry Ford that I love it goes like this “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success”. I love the team I work with they are the best.”

Jennifer McAllister has a degree in Business Management from UNC-Chapel Hill and is a licensed broker–in-charge as well as having twenty years of experience in property management. In her free time Jennifer likes to teach, “Because I always learn something from the individual experiences that are shared in the classroom, which is priceless!” On being a Community Manager, Jennifer says, “I like being an HOA manager as it presents the opportunity to serve local neighborhoods, and I always strive to make a difference in the communities I manage.”

Kathryn Bolton holds two degrees from Meredith College and has six years of experience in HOA management. “The best part about my job is being able to meet so many different people and form relationships with them. I feel that my past experience and my eagerness to help others will help me become a great part of your community,” she says. Kathryn was born and raised in Wendell, North Carolina and has lived there her entire life. She has one little boy named Kash, who will be 4 years old in February. “Some of our hobbies include watching football, riding four wheelers, fishing, traveling to participate in Native American Powwows, and anything else that he can get into!” she says.

Robert Mercer’s career includes six years of experience in real estate and four years in property management.  The Triangle has been home for Robert and his family for over 28 years. When not working, Robert enjoys college football, lacrosse, beach music, movies, and church activities.

In addition to our new managers we also welcomed Rose Ducos and Liz Stewart as a part of the administrative team in Pinehurst, NC.

Vice President of CAS, Ed Bedford has been named as a Hometown Hero by WCHL Chapelboro.

Ed was given the award for his many years of service to Extraordinary Ventures, a non-profit in Chapel Hill. Ed was a founding board member and continues to serve on the board of directors.

Extraordinary Ventures seeks to create employment opportunities for young adults with autism and other developmental disabilities.

In addition to his work with Extraordinary Ventures, the recognition also noted that Ed also serves as Scoutmaster for Boy Scout Troop 820 in Chapel Hill. He has held that position since 2001.