It it bitter sweet to know that our trip is meeting its half way point. We miss our loved ones back home and the comfort of our homes, but we love serving this community and making memories together. Today, we were excited to be told that we will actually get to work together, as a full group of 14, for the rest of our days here. We are working as a big team to make big progress on the King Family's House. Angie King and her two sons are going to be living in this HABITAT home, and we actually got to meet and speak to Angie as well as meet her mentor in the organization. We are so humbled to get to work alongside this amazing family that we got to connect with, and we hope that we are able to finish all of the projects that HABITAT wants for this home before we head back to Erie.
During our last morning apart, one half of our group followed in the other half's footsteps as they took part in the activities that the group did yesterday. Today's members also helped around the HABITAT house before going into Restore where they made another new paint color! For any readers that also have social media, these paint colors are a part of an online competition. HABITAT worked with many colleges from across the nation, so when a new college comes and gets to mix paint to help Restore, HABITAT allows the students to name there own color. These colors will compete on social media to see whose color is the best and has the best name, so if you want to vote, find the HABITAT Facebook page and vote for either Erie Shores Green (a gorgeous teal) or Guy Patrick's Sandy Beach (a beautiful warm tan). As a reminder, Guy Patrick is a wonderful man who has a huge impact here with HABITAT and is a Gannon Alumni!
On the other side of town, the other half of the group unloaded a mass amount of dry wall to put up in the house we worked on earlier in the week (with insulation). Some of these group members even built a side porch on the home. In the afternoon, the two halves of our group got to come together at the King House to install the dry wall, with some really cool tools and skills, as well as put up siding on the outside of the house. We loved learning tons of new skills from Hope, Mike, and Marty as we cut, installed, and drilled in the ceilings with dry wall and the siding with grey panels.
Tomorrow and Friday, HABITAT said they would be ecstatic if we finish putting up all of the dry wall around the inside of the home and the siding around the outside. We also have other smaller projects around the house that HABITAT has the group members working on, like the roofs over the two porches. Overall, the staff with HABITAT have mentioned how we are incredible fast and hard workers and that they truly enjoy teaching us the skills and watching us to complete the newly learned tasks on our own. We absolutely love working with the team and could not feel more welcomed and cared-for in this community.
For dinner, we were inviting to the First United Methodist Church where the HABITAT contractor, Mike's, wife was serving for the community. It was so nice to meet Mike's wife, Belinda, and well as some of the members of the church. They were so appreciative of us being there to serve with HABITAT, and at the same time we were so grateful that they would even think to offer us to join them for dinner. After eating, we planned to go bowling which unfortunately fell through. However, we embraced our childish sides and ended up playing versions of baseball and tag in the side yard of our HABITAT house. Group favorites were potato-pan (a modified game of baseball but instead of a bat, we used a pan, and instead of a ball, we used a cut up potato, and instead of bases, we just ran around with no real rules) and flash light tag (where the only way you could see in the dark was with the flashlights that the taggers held). We shared so many laughs as we ran around and enjoyed some fun free time outside together, finishing up the festivities with some star gazing.
We are thoroughly enjoying every aspect of our trip and will be sad as we near our last days here. We love getting to know the community, doing the physical labor and service projects, and having fun together after our hard days at work. We are creating so many life-long memories and cannot wait to make more during our last two days in Kentucky as we serve this incredible community with HABITAT.
Love,
The Kentucky Kids
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