Habitat for Humanity

Hello, hello, hello! I am back in Texas after spending 7 wonderful days in Oregon. I want to tell you all about it, but first I want to tell you about my current project in Texas.

Green 7 (my team) is working with the Beaumont chapter of Habitat for Humanity. For those of you who don't know what that is, HfH is a nonprofit group that builds houses for people in need. Much of the labor and materials are donated. People who need a house apply with HfH and if they are approved all they have to pay is a very low mortgage that covers the cost of the land and building the house because HfH does not make any profit from the house. HfH has been super active in the gulf region since the hurricanes of 2005 and here in Beaumont, we are building houses for people whose homes were destroyed by Hurricane Rita (NOT Katrina, that is a touchy subject over here since most of the media coverage is about Katrina and not a lot is said about Rita and how it destroyed the southeast coast of Texas).

My team and I are living in an annex building of a Lutheran church in Port Arthur, TX, about 20 minutes from our worksite in Beaumont. It used to be a daycare, so we are sleeping in empty classrooms. This is by far the best living situation we have had. There was a NCCC team from Denver here our first week and a half, but after they left there has been enough empty rooms so that we each have our own room.

When we started our new project, the house we were going to work on had just had the foundation poured and half of the subfloor had been put in. In one week we finished the floor stuff built two porches and put up the exterior and interior walls. I don't know all of what has been done in the last week since I was in Oregon, but I hear that the roof is coming along.

One bummer has been the weather. Every day it is so freakin' hot! It isn't as muggy here as it was in NOLA, but it easily feels like the 90s and 100s every day. On the first Thursday it started raining after an hour and a half of working. And when it rains, it POURS! We had to call it a day because, funny thing, water and electric tools don't mix. Crazy, huh? The next day we only worked up until lunch and had to quit for the same reason. It is either too hot or too rainy...no happy middle! Hopefully this next week the weather will be more forgiving.

I am really enjoying this project. Some of it may be because I will only be on this project for two weeks (week 1 and week 3) and then I leave the project and my team for team leader training in Sacramento. I know that I won't get burnt out on the project, so I can enjoy the small amount of time that I have left on it. There are a couple of guys on my team who have really helped me out the last couple of months and I will always be grateful for that, so I will really miss them. I am really looking forward to TL training and meeting new AmeriCorps people. I have a good feeling that this next year will be great. This year has been good, but I know it could have been better and I am determined to make it so.

I have to go to my second to last team meeting now. I'll write about JennaFest part II next time. Peace!