Saying Goodbye

The week has come to an end and it's time to say goodbye.  The evening began with dinner at the Magic City Grille II, where we had eaten breakfast and dinner every night.  We were joined by Peter Rumsey, head of the Habitat/AmeriCorps program.

Then, the night obviously led to John's Place...here's a taste of our goodbye party.

Exploring

Due to rain on our last day we unable to continue working (although our team had already finished their job). Instead, we toured some more of the community, including the Jimmy Carter Build, tornado stricken areas, and the ReStore.  We were all pretty worn out anyway, so more work was just out of the question.

The Jimmy Carter Build was the first stop. This was a newly completed community of 32 homes, all are Energy Star rated, and they are in the process of creating an HOA.

Next we saw more of devastation from the tornado a couple weeks ago.  The amount of damage was unbelievable, and the impact is difficult to explain.  There were houses with the roof ripped off and everything gone from inside, cars picked up and dropped, windows blown out, and at some foundations were all that was left.  It gave you chills to look at it, and there is no way that we could ever come close to understanding what the people effected are feeling.

              

The ReStore was the final stop.  It was quite impressive and I do believe we could steal a few ideas from them.  I took a little video to take everyone on a tour, enjoy!

Day 5: Finishing Adele's House

Our last day :(  Can't believe it's over.  It seems like the week just flew by now that it's done.  Today we finished Adele's house, just in time for a monsoon (pictures to follow below.)

Again, we took our time, taking lots of breaks, but also beginning to say our goodbyes as well.  It's an odd feeling to not only work side by side with people for a week, eight hours a day, live with them in close quarters, and eat every meal with them, to know that you may never see any of them again.  So we made the best of it and I think this will definitely be a trip in all our lives that we'll never forget. 

NOW for the afternoon monsoon!!!

Geranimo :)

Day 4: Adele's House

Another early morning today, but onto a new house, Adele's.
Adele has been living in this house for nine years, the block isn't the safest, but it's what she calls home.  We were responsible for trimming the green and coating the rest of the house. 

Since we knew what we were doing, from our mounds of experience over the last couple days, we were moving pretty quickly, so Geranimo encourages us to "take lots of breaks;" so we did...

Day 3: Finishing Coco's Mom's House

Today we completed our mission, finishing Coco's mom's house.  We touched up the overhang, painted the porch and steps, and landscaped the yard.  Coco worked with us all day again, and was generous enough to lend us her radio...

The music kept us going, our group is awesome in that we literally whistle (or sing) while we work.  We tell jokes, learn about one another lives outside of AmeriCorps.  We all get along well and take the time to teach each other tricks of the trade. Our group leader, Geranamo is great as well.  He's from Mexico, has a daughter, and plays the guitar.  He's always asking us questions and making fun of the things we do, he takes part in our conversations, and picks on everyone.

 

The final product was amazing, and once we'd finished, Coco's mom came out to admire her "new" house and thank us for our work.  It's incredible to be able to see the difference and know that hopefully we helped inspire the community to continue revitalizing. 

Here's the crew, Coco is in orange.

The crew and finished project, Geranamo is in the blue on the left.

The dancing continued in the car...

A visit to the Civil Rights Museum was on the agenda.   The museum was awesome.  It was done really well and everyone came out knowing a lot more about the history of Birmingham.   Across the street from the museum is the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, where in 1963 the KKK killed four little girls by bombing the church.  The whole experience was quite breathtaking and a bit overwhelming.  History is often hard to take in and even harder to understand, especially human nature, but it makes us contemplate, what have we learned?  There is still so much work to be done, and it makes us realize how important even the little changes we are make, create a difference.

Day 2: Coco's Mom's House

The second day consisted of a "Brush With Kindness" work.  This is a program being implemented in many affiliates across the country including Greater Birmingham.  The idea behind BWK is that when we make a home(s) look better, not only will the homeowner take pride in his/her home and street, but hopefully it will also ignite pride throughout the neighborhood. 

We were painting Coco's family home. The home has been in her family since her mother was young, and the age and decay was evident.  Coco came out and painted with us for the majority of the day, she brought us snacks and took the time to meet each one of us.  She was interested in hearing about where we were from, what there was to do in our towns, and where we'd traveled.

We made a lot of progress the first day, all that's left for tomorrow is finishing the overhang, painting the porch and steps, and landscaping; no biggie!

 

  

Later on (after showering the paint and smell away) we hit the "town," taking a break to meet some of the locals and learn their life stories.  There's one bar in the town that we're staying in, John's Place; they're welcoming to Habitat and bikers.  We met a man who's son and daughter-in-law are tornado victims, a woman who had traveled the world, a man who just finalized his divorce, and one more who has been married for 14 years.  It reminds us that everyone has a story and we all need to take a little time to learn what they are.

Day 1: Tornado Recovery

We began the morning bright and early with squeaky cots, lots of yawning, and good ole southern buffet. Then we hit the road to do tornado cleanup in Birmingham.  The devastation was unreal and difficult to see.  It was also hard to understand how one house would be leveled and then next door the house would be untouched.
The first project was to repair the vinyl siding on a Habitat home.
The homeowner had only been living in her house a week, before the tornado hit.  She said that she didn't even know it was coming until it was too late.  She grabbed her two young children, held them close and prayed until the storm had passed.  The majority of the Habitat partner families were home at the time.

One of the back walls needed to be fully replaced since another home's roof had flown right into it, knocking it off balance and adding a few holes to the plywood.              The homeowner was gracious, allowing us to use her water, and opening up her home to us.  She said, "I'm just glad you're here."

The second half of the day consisted of working on a new build, their Women Build up the street.  While some teams cleaned up yard debris, continued with vinyl repair, and deconstruction, we got to nail plywood into the new house; it was rough! By this point the temp had hit 90 and we were all feeling it, even the construction managers, Omar and Jaronamo; but we continued on and just look at the progress that can be made in just a couple hours, with a dedicated group of 15!

Tomorrow we will be back on schedule painting and doing repairs at four sites, so stay tuned!