Build Day #5

This week we will be working with the St. Bernard Project, a local organization whose mission is to help rebuild homes for those living in St Bernard's and Orleans Parish. The morning kicked off with their volunteer coordinator coming to our host to discuss their organization and a little about what would be doing this week. Of the 27,000 homes touched by floodwaters 27,000 we dreamed unlivable once the waters receded and people returned to their homes.

The home we were working on belonged to a long time NOLA resident who had owned the home since the early 80s. After seeing the picture of Katrina dominating the Gulf of Mexico he decided that he needed to evacuate the city with his parents who were close to 90; this was the first time he and his parents had ever evacuated for a hurricane. The waters reached about 10 feet and after several months living with his son in Atlanta he decided to come back to rebuild his home. While bouncing around transitional housing, he was ablew to secure a contractor to help him rebuild. After completing some of the work, his contractor skipped town with his money (this is actually a common occurrence for many residents who came back to rebuild). Unfortunately he did no have any source of income because he was injured while working on the job. Eventually he was able to get hooked up with the St. Bernard Project and was accepted onto a program with the United Way which would put him through a class to become a landlord; the project is currently helping to rebuild the other side of his home which he will be able to rent out and allow him to earn a steady income.

The goal of this week is to finish up the house so we quickly set off to work. Megan and Julie KILLED the flooring in the kitchen while the rest of us worked on painting or installing baseboards or doors.

David, the guy at the saw above, and I were one of the base board teams and let me tell you we wet en the struggle team from the get go. While our orientation and directions were fine we could not seem to get othe measurements and angles down. I blame it on the lack of coffee and my recently brushed brain. There were several times we were about to turn in the towel, but the site leader assured us that things would start to fly after lunch.

Jessie's mom and dad came to the rescue during lunch with sandwiches, someone picked me up an iced coffee and I was able to get in a solid twenty minute power nap. With all of those forces combined, David and I hopped off the struggle bus and started to kill it on the baseboards.

The afternoon became very hot, very quickly and there was no shade for the people working outside. You can almost feel Marcus's desperation here.

Small world: The girl sitting on the bottom left was one of our site leaders, an AmeriCorps member and Bike and Build alumni member.

When we arrived back to the host e were treated by some amazing smells. Jessie's mom and dad graciously cooked us dinner which came complete with roasted chicken, corn on the cob and rolls. We were all in heaven, eating like we did not know when or where our next meal would come from #bikeandbuildproblems. We finished the meal off with ice cream Sundays; so much for dropping weight on the trip.