Holiday Season

We're off for Christmas and the New Year. In the event that anyone was hoping for an update, I hope to post after the New Year when I return to Baton Rouge. A belated Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

Spring Build Season

I guess things are really ramping up.

This year Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge built about 20 houses in three parishes (including the 4 that were built during this last blitz). We really are trying to grow, because we are starting 20 houses in the first half of 2006.

March

• 1 Catholic Build (8 week)
• 2 Youth Build (3 week) - Valley Park/Wells St
• 1 Greek Build (1 week) - Cross Creek

April

• 1 Exxon/Mobil Build (4 week)
• 1 Thrivent Build (4 week) - Faith Court

May

• 4 West Side Build (1 week)
• 4 Buffini Build (1 week)

June

• 6 Home Builder Blitz (1 week)

If you add that all up, it should be 20. I'll edit this post as I learn the streets and locations of the builds. The good news is that we've been approved for more staff - so observant types should recognize that we have our work cut out for us. I don't mind mentioning that I'm more than a little afraid, but we've had a lot of willing support and I'm confident that we'll get more. I sure hope to see some of our new friends back...

Estelle Has a New House!

This past Saturday, we dedicated a house in Port Allen to Estelle Franklin and her family. The keys were presented to Estelle by a representative from the house sponsor, Entergy. It was rainy and cold and we tracked mud into her house all day, but I still think Estelle enjoyed it. It's still overwhelming to be present at such an event, but it's nice to see the end result - not just the house, but the owner's new home.

Estelle is the lady not wearing the Christmas hat.

Back to Fountain Drive

Fountain Drive is the home of our four houses from the blitz build. If I tell you a little secret, please don't spread it around - we didn't quite finish all of the houses. So, today a group of volunteers from Philip Morris, USA came as part of their Southwest Regional Manager's Meeting. They're having a three-day offsite/conference here in the lovely Red Stick and about forty of their sales force came to help us finish these houses on Fountain.

The cool part of today is that I had a Gwen & Naka moment. I led four separate siding teams (all at once) to finish the siding on two houses. Gwen & Naka were my two incredible task leaders in Kauai where I worked on a Global Village Build in September, and they're two of the reasons I came to do what I'm doing. I want to be like them when I grow up.

Anyway, about half of the group wanted to work on siding (who can blame them when we had painting to do inside?) I think I was successful bluffing my way through and letting them think I knew what I was talking about, and we finished the siding (and most of the soffit) on the remaining two houses! Thank you for the help!

(You really can't take photos of a build without taking one of someone using a miter saw...)

Oh, and I wasn't sure we were on Fountain until about 1:30 today, when it started raining. Then I knew we were back.

In the Media

I let my camera relax this week. However, we've been in the local media quite a bit and even made national news with Operation Home Delivery. Here are a few of the links:

[video]
Today show
WAFB

[print]
WBRZ News 2/The Advocate
WAFB

Leap Of Faith

You know, there are truly amazing people in this world. I had the pleasure of meeting one today, Seth Kujat. Seth has a mission, and it is to put a roof on at least one Habitat house in every state in our country in one year. He started earlier this year and just got to our state. Louisiana is his 33rd state and his 45th roof, or something pretty close to that.

Seth is someone you should meet. He's doing this on his own to motivate and inspire other people to achieve greater things. You can read about him on his website www.leapoffaithroofing.com.

Anyway, he completed the roof on our house in Port Allen and I got to work with him all day. Working with him, I had probably my best day at work so far. Heck, quitting my job to come do this doesn't even seem like much in comparison.

Seth set out to do this on his own, lives out of his van, brings his own tools and for someone so young, brings a lot of knowledge, experience and inspiration. I can only encourage anyone who is impressed by his quest to help his cause by donating to him. Seth has a passion and it is an inspiring sight to see.

Blitz Build Completed!

The blitz build ended on Saturday and it was an overwhelming success. What I mean by that was it was a) overwhelming and b) a success. For the week, we had a group of truly dedicated volunteers from all over our country. Volunteers from Tennessee, Kentucky, Florida, North and South Carolina, Ohio and Louisiana (and probably one or two states that I missed) showed up to build four of the Operation Home Delivery Houses for victims of hurricane Katrina.

The conditions were not the most favorable: we received four houses, but some were a different floor plan than what we anticipated (most likely a shipping error, although the FedEx homes arrived just fine - go figure...) and we had a great deal of rain, which led to a greater amount of mud on the first few days of the build.

Despite this, we were able to provide Traemel Day with the keys to her house at a dedication ceremony on Saturday. Hopefully one day, she'll have a few neighbors.

During the build, one of the volunteers offered me some server space so I could publish more of my photos. If there seems to be interest in this, I'll probably do it.

On Friday night, I was invited to visit the out-of-town volunteers who were staying at the FEMA tents. It was impressive to see the facilities and rumors of the meals are legendary.

Thank you everyone who participated. You are all an inspiration to me. It was wonderful to meet the AmeriCorps from the other states (oh yeah, have I mentioned I'm an AmeriCorps?) as well as the volunteers who just felt the need to be here and help. I've learned a lot this week about how to build but I also learned that there are others committed to the same principles I've dedicated this year to, and that helps me a lot. Thank you.

Just a few candids of the volunteers for the week.There were many more, and I'll try to share those soon. I guess since it's my blog, you have to suffer a few photos of me - my mom likes to see them.

seriously, isn't Natalie Morales beautiful?

others from across the country left messages as well.

I briefly wanted to say 'thank you' to the girls of Scotch Guard, a service organization from LSU. They can paint, caulk, carry and smile and they helped us get that much closer with the women's build. See, my job isn't that bad, I get to work with happy people.

As I was recently reminded I haven't updated in a while. We spent all last week preparing for our six day blitz build as part of Operation Home Delivery. We began framing the first house last Monday and made it look good for the television cameras.





This house is being built for Traemel Day, a New Orleans resident who has been displaced to Baton Rouge. She's a great cook (she made us a wonderful cake for Thanksgiving) and has shown up everyday on site. She's now also a celebrity, having been featured on the Today Show by anchor and correspondent Natalie Morales.






I've got more photos of the build that I will put up once this thing is done, but here are a couple of where we started and where we ended yesterday.





Finally, here's most of the construction crew - Mike, Cory and myself.
This photo was taken after our Thanksgiving lunch and we're accompanied by Lynn Clark. Lynn, our Development Director, is in charge of our public outreach and is a wonderful woman. In fact, I really like having my photo taken with her, see...

She too is a television celebrity now, as she was interviewed by several television stations during our media blitz last Monday.

Let me try to keep all of this information straight.

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge just received a check for about $391,000 from the Blank Family Foundation, owners of the Atlanta Falcons. This check amounted to a generous donation that was probably led by Warrick Dunn, of the Atlanta Falcons. Warrick has been a generous contributor to the Baton Rouge area, and this is no exception. I believe the check is intended to go to Katrina victims and most certainly this should allow at least six new homes to be built.

There are four (maybe it's six) "houses-in-a-box" headed down the Mississippi that have passed through Memphis. These are the homes for the blitz build that begins on November 27. We have had a shortage of drywall in this area and when this was explained to Habitat International, they were able to get Lowe's to donate enough material for four (maybe it's six) houses. The material was loaded on the barge in Memphis and we still expect to see it next Monday.

Finally, we received word that a Chicago-based firm that held their annual retreat here this past year (rather than have boring meetings, they all pitched in and helped remodel our Restore), wants to return and help build houses this time, again for Katrina victims. Note to any corporate types, the employees that attended the retreat thought the remodeling event was the best retreat they had ever had. Other note to corporate types, you can sponsor your very own house for the bargain basement price of $56,000.

The last two days have been exciting. Friday, I worked with my first group of volunteers from a Methodist church in Denham Springs. They turned out to help Cindy, the homeowner, with her house. I met her, and was immediately inspired by her. Working with a group of twenty-seven volunteers was a bit overwhelming at first, people were asking me for guidance!!!

Today, I met Estelle, the homeowner in Port Allen. Again, a lovely, deserving woman with a wonderful story. Not nearly as many volunteers showed up as yesterday, but the ones that did worked hard to compensate.

This post will be brief, but I wanted to share this - I have worked five days this week, and every day at least one person (often more) tells me "thank you". It's really nice to be in this kind of environment. I think this is the reward, and it really is worth it.

as promised, here are some photos:

First is the build at Port Allen. There is currently only one house under construction, although I believe the two next door are Habitat Houses and the lot next to this one will become a Habitat House in the spring.



I've provided a photo of the Mississippi River Bridge above the Port of Baton Rouge. In the spring, more of the "Houses In A Box" will be shipped down the Mississippi to be assembled here, in Baton Rouge.



Again, Faith Court is our largest current build. Five homes are under construction now joining the eight that have already been built. Next spring, the final two will be built - rounding out the fifteen. The first two houses shown here are the two from the women's build (the ones that stood up to Katrina).



the next photo just shows how cool it is to create and name your own street. In the background, you can see some of the other houses that have already been completed.



Finally, this is the house at Denham Springs - the first build in this area.

To all those still playing along at home, thank you.

I made it to Baton Rouge, LA on Friday and I just finished my first day of work. I don't know if I can call it work because it was filling out forms and then I was given a tour of the Habitat builds by Lynn Clark, our Development Director. I will try to get some photos of the builds up soon, but in the meantime I'll provide the details of what I've learned...

Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge is a mid-size affiliate. This means that they typically build about fifteen homes per year. Because of Katrina and the population expansion of approximately 100,000 new residents, this Habitat affiliate anticipates ramping up 2006 construction to about thirty homes per year.

There are three ongoing builds:

• Port Allen
• Denham Springs
• Faith Court

Of these, the Faith Court is the largest current build where they (ok, we) are currently constructing five houses to accompany the eight they've already built. Faith Court is also unique, because they were able to join two dead-end roads and were allowed to name the new road, hence "Faith Court". Faith Court is also home to two survivors of Hurricane Katrina, houses that begun August 20 and were worked on August 27 - one day before Katrina began wreaking havoc with this town's infrastructure. It should be noted that these two homes are part of a woman's build, and they did indeed survive the hurricane.

What's most surprising (to me) is that every weekend they work on all of these builds. Because HFH relies on volunteers, they average over one hundred volunteers per weekend, usually split up into groups of 20-25 at each house.

There is a one week blitz build that will begin Sunday, November 27 where four new homes specifically allocated to displaced residents from Katrina, will be built! This means that volunteers wanting to help are desperately needed that week.

Ok, the last little tidbit is that on Monday, November 21, the Today Show will be here to highlight the activity of HFH of Greater Baton Rouge! We don't know yet if it's Katie, Matt, Ann or Al, but it will be somebody, and I'll try hard to get my photo taken.

Tomorrow I hope to know more about my responsibilities, but at least here's a bit of background. Again, I hope to have links to the photos up soon.

Finally, I have a email address with Habitat! That's so cool...

Yesterday marked the end of seven years at ArgonST. Today, I will begin driving to Baton Rouge with a stop in Arkansas, so I hope to be there Wednesday at the latest. I've told Habitat of Greater Baton Rouge that I will be at their office on Thursday.

I'm grateful that my company has allowed me the year off to go pursue this opportunity. It wasn't a decision I made lightly, but deliberately - and my company and many of its employees has earned greater respect from me because of their wishes.

tis true, i up and quit my job and i hope to chronicle the next year working in baton rouge here.