Photo of the site at the beginning of the build...taken from the Habitat website
A few months ago I attended an orientation to learn about the organization. Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit Christian organization that helps build affordable homes for families in need. In San Diego, the word affordable does not usually go together when describing the housing market. Yes, it's true I own a home in San Diego, but the amount I pay for my 3 bedroom townhouse would probably equate to a 6 bedroom enormous house in other parts of the United States. We do pay to have amazing weather all year round.
Homeowners go through a selection process, and experience all the other fun things that other homeowners go through like escrow, getting a loan, and paying a mortgage. In addition they also have to donate their hours to help build their own home or other Habitat homes. The houses are built by volunteers with the help of money and material donations.
The homes beginning to take shape...taken from the Habitat website
I got an e-mail a few weeks ago that they were in dire need of volunteers to help finish 4 townhouses before Christmas. How awesome would it be for these families to have a house to call home for Christmas! Count me in! I drove the 30 minute trek to get to the site, and saw a few new colorful homes surrounded by a lot of old homes. It was easy to spot....
Street view of the homes...taken from the Habitat website
Our group for the day consisted of our fearless leader Mike, two "regular" volunteers, a man who got one of the finished Habitat townhomes just a few feet away, three "semi-regular" volunteers, and a group of five people from an organization called Wounded Warriors. They were the last of the clan to arrive, so as we were waiting for them Mike told us how that group consisted of soldiers wounded (mentally and/or physically) from the war. I'm pretty tough, and can handle a lot, but I just about lost it when I saw one man walking towards us in crutches, and another man wearing a prosthesis due to an amputated leg. These guys fought for me, and for all of us, and nearly lost their lives, and here they were still giving to others. I think helping build the home with these guys made the experience exuberantly better.
We split up into several jobs, two pairs of people worked on cutting and setting floor tiles (including two of the wounded warriors, and they were amazing at it!), two guys worked on installing water heaters, one of the ladies did wood staining, one guy installed toilets, another guy installed hardware, one guy installed tile back splashes in the kitchen, and I (with the help of the Wounded Warriors group coordinator, Alysha) worked on grouting tiles.
Our main working area, on the very left you can see one of the "Wounded Warriors" cutting tile with a wet saw
You don't have to be handy to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. I think you just have to be eager to learn and help out. When Mike asked me if I had ever grouted tile I said, "I watched a guy grout my tile in my house." He actually sounded pleased and said, "Well, that's more than most people!" Next thing I know I was grouting a kitchen counter. The kitchen counter was half way done from a previous day, and I do have to say that I did a much better job than the previous people, in fact, I was so confident in my new found skills that I fixed up the ugly grout job they did with the remaining grout I had left.
My Grout job in the kitchen, it still needed one more wipe down, but overall not too shabby
After grouting the kitchen we got a 30 minute lunch break. As I was sitting in the sun to warm myself up I heard one of the Wounded Warriors talking about his experiences in Afghanistan. Here I was day dreaming of what I wanted to do in the following year, like go to Asia, take a painting class, finish a few more upgrades in the house, and then I hear him say, "In the next year, I hope to learn how to walk again." I had to turn the other way so he didn't see my face while I was on the verge of tears...yet again.
Thankfully, Mike approached me and took me to my next project. He led me to the living room and told me I needed to clean it up, and then grout the space. The space was like 10x bigger than the kitchen I just spent 2 hours grouting! It took about an hour to just vacuum up all the debris, and after we were done with that, Alysha and I donned our knee pads (best inventions EVER) and got to work. We worked and worked until we ran out of grout again. By the time we finished cleaning up the tile it was ready to go home.
Part of the living space I grouted....you can tell where we ended up running out of grout
After cleaning up our tools, we all said goodbye and headed home. I had such an awesome experience and I hope to volunteer for more Habitat events in the future. I think I can now safely put "Master Grouter" on my resume. Habitat for Humanity builds homes worldwide so make sure to check their website to see if they are building a home near you!
Date Accomplished: December 6th, 2011
3 comments:
What a great experience Cece; you rock! I had heard of Habitat for Humanity before and am interested in volunteering for them at some point. Great cause!
What an amazing experience this must have been! And what a wonderful thing to help do for a family, Cece. I almost had the opportunity to work with HFH once but it was cancelled a few days before. So, thank you for the link - I never thought of looking online for volunteer information.
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