Busy busy busy

Last weekend Kim, Zoe and I biked the Hilly Hellacious Hundred. After a few miles I decided to bike the metric century instead of 100 miles. So I enjoyed my beautiful bike ride through Asheville and completed the 62 miles easily. Monday Ben came to visit. We checked out a local breakfast place and walked around before hanging out with my friends at the apartment. Tuesday he was pressed into services and came out to volunteer with me.

This past week was spent doing extensive prep work for the 30 hour Build house. We did a lot of hauling materials and tools to the job site as well as framing all the walls. Then Friday at 6am the Build started! Sean and I spent 12 hours there yesterday (4am-4pm) then went back this morning at 3. Lowe’s sponsored the house and had a lot of their employees out volunteering with us in shifts. The house started as a blank slab and 30 hours later was a finished house! It was a great start to Habitat’s 30^th Anniversary Festivities!

Tonight I’m flying to Providence to Run the Rock and Roll Half Marathon with Molly and Ron. It’ll only be a short trip because I have to work on Monday for the Rodgers Builders Blitz Build! I love my crazy busy life!

 

30 Hours later- the house is finished!

 

The family getting the keys to their house at the Dedication Ceremony

Weatherization

This week we had our weatherization training. This entailed suiting up in head to toe protective gear and descending into the crawl space beneath a house to remove all the debris and laydown plastic. Then we sealed the plastic sheeting and sealed any ducts that were leaking air. After learning how to do that on Friday I led a volunteer to weatherize Vanessa’s house (the house we started last weekend) on Saturday. The space under the house was so tight in the far dark corner I was really the only person who would fit there, and it was so dark I could hardly see. The space could only be navigated by crawling belly down, and in the tightest spaces I was belly down and could nearly feel the house on my back! I’m now covered with bruised from two days of crawling over rocks and hard ground. We managed to lay down and seal the plastic sheeting very quickly. We also grouted two of the three walls around the tub which I had tiled the day before.

When we started I was told that we’ll not have very many volunteers in Critical Home Repair but I’m glad that we’ve had a few. I love working with volunteers and hearing their stories and working alongside them. We do have one regular volunteer, Bob, who comes with our team nearly every day. Bob is 84 years old and has been volunteering with Habitat since he retired. He pretty much only works with T.A. but also puts in some time at the warehouse. Last week we had trouble getting into a good rhythm, but this week Bob and I rocked the teamwork as we tiled the bathroom. All this week Sean led volunteers and ripped up the kitchen floor, replaced all the rotted wood and then retiled it. Tuesday he’ll finish building a concrete support in the crawl space fixing the sagging kitchen!

Friday after finishing working at our house we went right over to one of the new construction sites to help out Alex and Kim’s teams who were framing a new house with a bunch of volunteers. About the time we got there the volunteers were leaving so we were able to help them finishing the day’s framing and cleanup before going back home. I love that our team finishes our day early enough to
show up at another site to help out. That day left me feeling incredibly energized and happy and I was glad to be able to work on a new site in addition to the home repair work I’ve been doing. I feel like I’m learning so much already and I love being an Americorps member again!

Full PPE

Under the House!

Crawl space: Weatherized!

Getting Started!

Last week we started working with our supervisors. Our team spent the week working on one project, and then started a new house. This week I learned how to tile and grout a bathroom, which turned out awesome! Sean worked on building a new footer in the crawl space. This involved hours of mixing concrete under the house and working in the cramped space.We did a couple of other small repairs and should finish that house later this week.

Saturday we started working on a new house. We began the day with a small dedication prayer circle with staff, our volunteers, and the homeowner. We had four volunteers for the day: future homeowners who were working off their sweat equity hours. We spent the morning taking apart a rotting porch and pressure washing the exterior of the house, then the afternoon moving cinder blocks and cleaning up the site of the 30 hour build house, which we’ll be building at the end of the month as part of the affiliates 30^th anniversary 30-30-30 events. (30 projects, in 30 days, with 30 partners). Currently there are 42 projects lined up, with over 80 community partners in 30 days (not including Sundays)!

First Week in Charlotte

This was my first week of service with Habitat Charlotte as an Americorps member. It was four days of training including purchasing tools, a build day and getting our team assignments. We also toured the Habitat for Humanity offices, warehouse, and Restores. The main restore also has a used bookstore/coffeeshop attached that serves coffee and baked goods and all the proceeds go to fund Habitat houses! Although one of my goals for this year is no not acquire any books (or other treasure that seems to accumulate) it’s going to be challenging being so close! Most of the week was spent with training and orientation, and we have another week of training before we settle into our routine.

Thursday we had a big group build day with all the Americorps and the site supervisors (about 30 people total). We built a subfloor for a house and spent the day rotating teams, experiencing different supervisors and working with different Americorps members. At the end of the day we learned our team assignments. Sean and I will be on TA’s team doing critical home repair. The critical home repair program provides urgent major home repairs to low income primarily elderly homeowners. We’ll also get to build on the 30 hour house (a house we’ll build over 30 straight hours of building) and the 7 day build.

Saturday we had off for the holiday weekend, so I was able to attend the Hands on Charlotte new volunteer orientation and learn about different volunteer opportunities in the community and meet some other new volunteers. There seems to be a lot of different opportunities to volunteer, but not necessarily on my days off, so I may look into volunteering after work some days. Then I went to my first yoga class at Okra. It was a heated vinyasa class, which was a new experience for me. I like the studio, its clean and really cool to practice in. There are tree branches decorating the walls and some really unique lighting fixtures to set the mood. However belonging to a yoga studio might be too expensive this year, and a membership to the YMCA really is a better option. The YMCA offers not only yoga classes, but spin, other group exercise, a pool and general workout equipment.

The other day Zoe invited me to do a century ride in 3 weeks with a group of recent Bike and Build Alums. I haven’t ridden 100 mile ride since 2008. So I don’t know how far I’m actually going to get, but I’m going to attempt the “Hilly Hellacious Hundred” ride. I’m excited! So far it seems that a lot of the Americorps members who are from the area spend most of the weekends with the boyfriend/girlfriend/families so there’s not too much going on in our apartments on the weekends. Friday we did have our first “Family Diner.” This potluck was themes “food that begin with the letter P.” I brought potatoes, but we also had popcorn, pico (and chips), phajitas, and peaches. We also played Cards Against Humanity (politically incorrect Apples to Apples) and had the chance to hang out as a group after a great first week!