This morning I was up bright and early before the rest of the crew and was able to get some much needed post adds written. We all hopped on our bikes and headed just a few miles down the road to our build site. Ridge rest has a small affiliate which finishes only one or two homes a year. Today we would be working on our first demo project of the summer and finish the work that last years SUS team had started. The home we would be finishing was donated several years ago and due to other projects, a skeleton staff and placement of volunteers at other projects the demo had been put on hold for a year.
The other project we would be working on was to move the debris from the parking lot into the dumpsters which would be picked up later in the day.
Everyone was super excited to get going and the group split into two. At first the task of putting all the broken cinder blocks seemed like it would take forever, but thanks to the great number of hands we had working on the project it went by pretty quickly.
As for the demo, the entire house was made of cinder blocks. We each took our turn sledge hammering and jack hammering the remaining walls to not only take them down, but to break them into small enough pieces to be placed in the dumpster. Most of us realized hat we were using muscles we had not used in forever, but that did not slow us down.
Due to the large project and heavy sledge hammers most of us worked in groups of two or three and rotated around. We then rotated with others who were picking up/wheel barrowing the debris to also give ourselves a break. All the while we had some great rock/heavy metal playing in the background which was fitting for the day.
Around noon we took a break for lunch and realized that if we kicked it into high gear afterwords we would be done early which is always nice. For lunch we had sandwiches and this bomb Asian salad along with bicycle and hammer sugar cookies.
After Picture i.e. there is nothing left!!
Once we got everything take down and out in dumpsters, we took our after shots and a group photo (notice the rebar bent by our one and only Marcus) before we split up for the pool and/or racquet ball courts.
Steph, Marcus, Bri and myself got a complementary power aid at the pool before we headed over to the Community Rec Center to get our racquet ball on. Now dead reader you should know that I grew up playing tennis and had never stepped onto a court before. Compare this to Marcus who has the whole get up at home and told us he would be rusty as he had not played in a few years. The whole thing was a disaster, but I cannot remember a time when I had laughed so hard (okay maybe earlier at the. Hold site, but laughing to a point where you almost pee your pants is a common occurrence here on B&B).
From there we raced back home because Marcus was on laundry crew and I was on dinner crew (homemade sloppy joes) and giving my affordable housing presentation on the links between stable, affordable housing and health outcomes. Here are some links you can check out and while it might not be as much fun as my Jeopardy game, the info is definitely the same.
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