Gratitude

I'm thankful for:

• My wonderful and supportive family that accepts my crazy ideas and lets me roll with them
• That I have a job that I love, and that I have the opportunity to continue to learn and grow and work and have fun!
• My friends. I'm so thankful to have friends who support and care for me. I'm especially thankful for all the friends who want to visit and work with me and can experience what I'm passionate about.
• Sean, Alex, Jenna and my parents have all come to Charlotte to to build with me. I'm excited to host even more family and friends and share a fun work day with them.
• And I'm grateful to Logan and his family for taking me in this Thanksgiving.
• Dedicated volunteers who give up their time and weekends to work hard to make Habitat for
  Humanity's mission successful.
• Being healthy and able to work and play as hard as I possibly can.
• The sense of Community that I've found in Charlotte, at Habitat and at Okra. I cherish all the people I've met becoming part of these communities.

Progress

The past few weeks have been filled with fabulous, dedicated and hard-working volunteers! Synethia's house is at the drywall stage (we have three pieces to put up today an it'll be done)! And this past Saturday was the dedication on the Charlotte Church Partners houses! 

Green Building Conference

Yesterday we went to Asheville for a conference about Green Building and Sustainability hosted by their Habitat for Humanity. It was really interesting to hear about the upcoming System Vision standards for existing homes, and it seems like many of the items on the list are already being done here at Habitat Charlotte for our Critical Home Repair projects. It was also really intresting to hear about the Tiny Home Movement and to consider its ramifications in an affordable housing setting.

Habitat International announced that they are unveiling a Habitat Certified Construction Manager Program at the 2015 Conference in March. I'm very excited to participate in these trainings and see what "Core Competencies" Habita International finds valuable in Habitat Construction Staff and be able to hone my own knowledge and skills.

After the Round Table discussions we toured several in-progess build sites. We say what their attics look like after using spray foam insulation (which sounds dangerous to use and store, but looks like it creates a tightly sealed attic space). It was also interesting to note that their Homeowners in Process don't have any input about their houses, they don't choose their lots, floor plans, color schemes or anything. The finished houses do look amazing though with beautiful local cabinets, laminate flooring, and a light green hue seems to be their stock paint. It was interesting to talk to Robin, one of their site supervisors and hear that she does install laminate with volunteer groups, and the flawless paint job was also the handiwork of volunteers.

Trusses

This past weekend I had an amazing crew putting on the roof trusses at Synethia's House!

October 2014

I’ve been keeping so busy at work, and living the social life of dorm living that I’ve barely had time for myself the past two months. But this week and weekend I’ve managed to set aside some introvert time and refocus myself. I’ve started running again. Intensely. Today I ran 13.3 miles and while the last three were pure torture I feel great that I managed to keep going, make every mile count and that I was able to focus on one activity for so long. After that I had brunch with Logan so skipped yoga, which I may have skipped anyway from the aching muscles in my legs. Due to my crazy work schedule (roughly 50 hour weeks) my yoga practice has been suffering. I’ve been managing to go to 2 classes a week, after my shifts at Okra. And those classes have done much to restore my calm, re-center myself and reflect on my life. So after those classes I’m ready to hit it hard again the next day!

Yesterday we started building a new house. Isaac said I could be in charge of running this one totally, all the volunteer days, scheduling and checking on the subcontractors, inspections, and making sure the house is built and built to code. So we had a beautiful day framing and raising walls with a lot of volunteers from the community. The homeowner, Synethia, and her family came out and swung hammers alongside the volunteers. We got all the walls framed and braced into place, and the first sheet of OSB put up. Chanelle and Isaac joined me after running the their 2 houses to finish cutting and nailing in the cap plates. Michael Matthews (our resource manager who is in charge of ordering supplies and maintaining the Americorps apartments) joined us in the afternoon to do a bit of framing work. He had mentioned earlier in the week that framing was the only aspect of Habitat Building that he had never experienced so I invited him to join us, and he kindly stayed until the cap plates were completed as well! And Elhadji joined us after he finished his work for the day (he is one of the Americorps on a Home Repair team) to do cap plates and help clean up.

Other items from the past month I want to remember and recognize:

·         Gratitude to Jenna who came and visited me for her weekend and ended up working with me  two very physically taxing days. We did roof sheathing and shingling on Latasha and Angela’s houses and it was a blast! Jenna’s visit came at the perfect time to save my sanity from all the craziness running around my head, and having her see my work and my life reaffirmed what I’m doing.

·         Love, love, love to my parents whose visit coincided with Jenna’s. Being able to spend a week with them seriously helped me distress as well as make sure I was well fed. I enjoyed having them join me on the build site even though I made them do some of the work volunteer tasks- nailing in hurricane hangars and caulking! Their visit was during our blitz week which meant I worked about 60 hours and my weekend was nonexistent.

·         The Nascar Build! With the Bank of America we framed Samantha’s house  at the Charlotte Motor Speedway Nascar to generate media attention before the Bank of America 500. Nascar Drive Kasey Kahne showed up with us for a bit, and we were given tickets to attend the race! It was an interesting experience. We left the house up in the parking lot for a week, then returned to take it apart and move the walls to the site where they will be reassembled and completed!

·         The absolute joy I have in my team here at Haibtat Charlotte. Isaac is a great boss. Over the past few weeks he has been giving me a lot more independence and trust to complete tasks and his faith in my ability to lead Synethia’s house alone was really inspiring to me to work even harder. I love Chanelle and Logan and working with them is a blast. I feel like we have really gotten to know each other’s habits (like I need a giant cup of coffee the start the day, Logan WILL show up in flip flops and won’t take them off if he can get away with it, and Chanelle will boss him around if she can get away with it). I love how Chanelle will offer to give me my first hug of the day, and sometimes Logan will bring me coffee even if he is embarrassed about ordering it the way I like. I like how we have “Team Food.” For example if I’m eating a slice of pizza someone can just say “team pizza” and then everyone is entitled to have a bite of the pizza. This happens with any and all food items from water bottles to apples, pizza to lollipops.

·         I love my roommates at the apartments and how they make me seem like a neat freak in comparison. I pretend that I’m going to be glad to have the place to myself while they are in Talledega next week, but secretly after half a day the place is going to seem lonesome and empty. This place is always hopping with people hanging out, playing games, chatting or baking delicious treats. Although I find it hard to find “introvert time” I cherish my new friends.

Jenna helping to sheath the roof!

Chanelle conquering her fear and getting on the roof!

Logan with some Team Donuts in his mouth...Isaac ending up eating those donuts

Samantha's house at the Charlotte Motor Speedway parking lot!

Isaac, Kasey Kahne, me and Logan

Nascar race! 300+ laps of those cars driving in a circle

Synethia's house with the first few walls put up!

 

Synethia's house at the end of the day! All walls up and cap plated!

Finally! An Update!

The new term of service has started at Habitat Charlotte. We have a new crop of Americorps living and serving here and I've been working my tail off learning all the details of new construction as well as having more responsibility and leadership of the worksites. It has been alot of fun, but I end each day crashing into my bed exhausted! But I love that I wake up each morning enthusiastic and excited about the work ahead! The new group of Americorps is really fun. Everyone likes hanging out and getting to know each other. There is always someone around, or something going on.

Next week is the official start of our Blitz Build season, but alot of the projects are already underway. My team had two new starts last Saturday. Our houses are sponsored by the Charlotte Church partners and they've been sending out fantastic groups of volunteers to work together to build these houses. Yesterday we put the trusses on both the houses. They are looking fantastic!

Emma, Isela and Chasity on their first build day!

 

One of the new houses being framed!

Charlotte Church partner finish sheathing the house in the foreground while also putting up trusses on the house in the background!

Decision

Tuesday morning I had a meeting with the heads of construction, new construction and host site coordinator. They had scheduled the meeting with me the week before to talk about my service next year. I assumed that we would set goals for the year and talk about specifics on what I should focus on learning and how I could be a leader amongst the Americorps. Knowing that I had the goal of reapplying to be a Construction Fellow next year I assumed they would help me plan my next year with that goal in mind. I was struck speechless when instead I was offered a Construction Fellowship starting in August. After looking at the new construction goals for the next year and the increase in the number of families served they decided to hire three Fellows instead of two.

My initial gut reaction was to decline the offer. After accepting another Americorps term of service I’ve become really excited for all the positives about that experience. I was looking forward to the camaraderie of belonging to a group, going to Talledega for the Leadership Conference, going to Build-a-Thon in the Spring and having another year to become proficient at construction skills. I don’t think I smiled at all during the morning meeting as all these thoughts were racing around my head. After talking with my mom, current supervisors, and making a pro/con list with Caroline and Sean I had a lot of perspective on the decision before me. Spending another year as an Americorps would mean an additional year of experience and learning new construction. Becoming a Fellow would mean more responsibility and taking that position now would show a lot of growth.

My deliberations led to these final thoughts: I know that I love my job and the work that I am doing. I want to be able to do this and be happy for as long as I can. My thought process leads me to believe that having the experience of being a fellow would be best for my career path. If after the fellowship I can’t find a job as a site supervisor I still have an Americorps term of service that I can use to continue gaining experience. And it meant a lot of me that the heads of construction see a lot of potential in me and want to invest in me by offering me this opportunity. Ultimately I recognize that this position will be very challenging for me and I can’t wait to rise to the occasion and prove that they made the right decision.