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.