Last Day!

Another new work site, but this time at a nearly finished home close to where we're staying. Our boss for the day was Marty, who has worked with Habitat for 11 years. Marty had us clean out the gravel basement, lay timber for the back stairs, mix & pour concrete, and smash some stone steps.



It was cool to see the "Welcome Home" sign hanging in the living room from this family's dedication ceremony. We hope that the Willis family will be able to hang a sign of their own in roughly three months!


After our afternoon shift, we had our final group reflections. We've learned a lot, accomplished projects big and small, and a had great experience overall. While making dinner, we jammed to some tunes in the kitchen and danced like fools. It's funny how tearing down a house brings eight strangers together so well.

Wednesday: Our day off

Everyone got the much-needed chance to sleep in before exploring more of Richmond and Berea. Around 10:30, we left for Purdy's, a swanky little coffee shop on Main Street.

The view from Main Street

Large Cappuccino, but who counts calories anymore

After we got nice and caffeinated, our next stop was the 'Amish' store in Berea. We say 'Amish' because most of the food items were not Kentucky-made.

Cadillac Escalade 2019 Model

On the way home, we stopped at the Kentucky Artisan Center. The artisan center was full of pottery, jewelry, and other items far outside of a college student's budget. One of the items was a life-sized horse made of old fencing for a reasonable $54,400. What a steal!

For our afternoon snack, Donut Days graciously donated more pastries than we could ever want. We went on a donut strike afterwards...but it was short lived. Free food is free food.

For dinner, we were hosted by Eastern Kentucky University's Catholic Campus Ministry (CCM) at St. Mark's.  We had BBQ pulled chicken, green beans, potatoes, fruit, and angel food cake. We were joined by some of the CCM students and Paolo, a foreign exchange student from Venice, Italy. The conversation was lively and we had a great time!

All the great people that we shared a meal with on Wednesday night

Thursday: ReStore projects

Instead of reporting to work on the house, we went to Habitat's ReStore shop. The ReStore is very much like your typical thrift store, but has a wider selection of home decor, appliances, and construction items.

We broke off into teams of 2's and 3's. Asla, Morgan, and Olivia help repaint the floors. Chad and Andrew were in charge of relocating new items from the storage containers into the store to be sold. Crista, Cory, and Hitham helped hang drywall in the new living room display area.

 


For lunch, we grabbed some local BBQ from Smitty's and took naps before returning for our second shift.

A one stop shop, you can get some delicious southern barbecue and a new  'do

Our next task after finishing the floors and drywall was to create a new paint color from donated canisters. After throwing together blues, greens, grays, and some white, we had made "Presque Isle Blue." A subtle sky-blue good for the interior of a home or an accent wall! Before leaving, we decorated a door with our blue handprints and "Gannon University 2018 Habitat Trip."





It's hard to believe that tomorrow is our last day to work on the house. We've had great weather, too, so no one is ready to go back to chilly Erie.

Day two and the house on Berenwood is virtually empty, save for the studs and the odd nail. Chad and Andrew tag-teamed tearing down the ceilings in each room while Cory and Asla wrecked the attic space.





Our newest addition, Liz (from Michigan) took out the kitchen cabinets like it was nobody's business. Imagine Thor in real life, but with a longer hammer/pick axe. Beautiful. By the way, she beat her court case. Also, today we were able to work with a two living legends. First, was Guy Patrick, who actually helped to start Habitat for Humanity in the counties of Clark and Madison, Kentucky. The other living legend's name was José Cabrera, who volunteers with Habitat for three days a week and travels the country in his RV.

Some of the group members listening intently to The Mr. Guy Patrick.
Note well- that Chad has failed fashion 101, he wore all white after Labor Day. I just can't...

The Tyvek suit modeled by Asla, and José's RV in the background.

It is astonishing the rate at which we've cleaned out the single-level house. We'll be getting more rain the next two days, but hopefully by Friday we will be able to take the siding off the house.

We found a passionate love letter stashed in the attic;
the writer clearly didn't understand the concept of a "Dear John" letter.

Ms. Willis and her two children came to visit us today, a little more excited at the prospect of having their own home. Seeing their faces is a good reminder of what we are working for.

We are all about saving energy around here...so...

Today was our first day on the job! We met with our Habitat for Humanity partners for breakfast and a briefing on our project. And OMG they had Chick-Fil-Ahhhh. Here's a tip for you northerners reading this blog, step outside your comfort zone and slap some strawberry jam on a chicken biscuit, you will not regret it.

Madison and Clark counties are in need of some special love and attention. Our partner family is a single mother trying to build a better life for herself and two kids. All in all, we felt that words alone cannot describe the deep sense of gratitude expressed for us simply being here.

Ms. Rebecca Willis in the center and our new friend Liz in front of Asla. You people viewing our blogs know the rest of the pictured homeskillets.

The home we are working on is a 'recycled' home. It was built by Habitat 20 years earlier, but has since fallen into abandon. Our main focus today was to gut the interior walls of drywall and insulation.

A little amputation never hurt anybody. (Olivia and Cory)

Cory showing the tools and Morgan showing the "guns" in the background.

Our project manager expected us to gut the back two bedrooms and part of the hallway. By the end of our second shift, we'd made it into the living room and kitchen, attacking the walls and cabinets with all we had!

Originally, we were divided by helmet color (White Caps SUX EGGS and the Green Knights) to see who could gut their back bedroom first. As the competition died with the last few pieces of crumbling drywall, the teams merged to finish the rest of the house. The seamless sense of teamwork struck a cord in all of us as both natural and miraculous.





Also, shout-out to Liz our pick axe wielding habitat friend who straight up murdered some drywall. She will be arraigned on Tuesday, but really... she is visiting friends here in Richmond and decided to volunteer for a few days.

The work may have been tough, but it was fun kicking through walls and knocking over things together.

Asla using the boot!!!

In case you need help going to sleep...

We started off the morning with French toast and jam, then got dressed for an afternoon outdoors. With our hiking boots laced, we drove the half hour out to Raven Run nature sanctuary.

From Left to Right (Front): Morgan Earley, Olivia Collins, Crista Gray, Andrew Hamilton, Chad Indorf
Left to Right (Back): Hitham Hatatah, Cory Pius, Asla Alkhafaji

Last night we experienced some heavy rains and winds, which made the trails a soggy, muddy mess. For the most part, we made it through without any major wipe-outs.







It was the perfect day to explore the hills and valleys of Kentucky. We lost count of the numerous waterfalls and switchbacks, sometimes feeling as though the trail went on forever.


Periodically, we encountered some enthusiastic trail runners crazy enough to run through all of the muck--one man looked as though he was wearing leggings made of pure mud! Three hours later,  we broke through the tree line at the end of the trail at last!

First day of work tomorrow so everyone is getting to bed early...

First Day of Habitat Domestic: Richmond, Kentucky

Today we left the great state of Pennsylvania for Kentucky with a Suburban packed to the ceiling and high hopes for the adventure to come!

We arrived at our new home for the week and began to settle in to our humble abode. However, not to humble, because our house will be on the upcoming MTV Cribs Habitat for Humanity Edition.

After a restful afternoon, the group went to an evening Spanish Mass at a local parish. Supper then needed to be prepared so Cory and Olivia graciously slaved over a hot stove to fix a simple yet delicious meal. The group sat down to a family meal: picnic style.

A little post-meal discussion with some laughs and the group is ready for some much needed shut-eye. Seeya in the A.M.