Civic Duty

A few weekends ago Mom and I went and volunteered to help with Habitat for Humanity in South Atlanta. We were hoping to log hours towards a free ticket to Disney, but we didn't register in time to get the ticket, which was fine since we were doing our civic duty anyways! We knew that it was the last day on the current build they were working on as well as the last build for the season. We were prepared for rain or shine (since it had rained for 2 days prior) as well as not knowing what we were going to be assigned to.

When we got there at 8AM they had coffee and donuts for everyone and then Clark Howard did his introductions and then split everyone up. There were a ton of group, organizations, colleges etc. there to participate. Five houses were being finished and dedicated that same day so there was a LOT to do. We got to meet all the future owners of these CUTE houses. Each of the recipients had to log over 230 HOURS of volunteer work each, a year of financial classes with Clark, and then rented the house for a year in which the money went towards their mortgages. SO, it was nice to know that they weren't just getting a free house. When we got there they were saying that the majority of us were going to be laying sod and doing landscaping, which I wasn't excited about cause of all the mud. I wore the only thing I was willing to get dirty, but not ruined. So as soon and we got assigned to our house they asked for 4 people who wanted to clean inside so I JUMPED(literally) to get out of doing sod. VERY grateful because it was messy out there. I even saw one woman loose her nike shocks because the mud was like "Bubble Gum Ally" and EVERYONE outside was COVERED head to toe in mud. Who can see me out in the mud? Didn't think so! PTL!!!

I chose to clean the bathroom which was nasty with mud and a tub full of GROSE murky water. Needless to say I was in there for hours cleaning. I had help from a college girl, but she was actually more in the way and didn't do anything besides clean the widow. Mom was asked to sweep out all three bedrooms because they had been full of the shrubs that went outside. She then was kind of everywhere doing whatever needed to be done. After lunch, which was catered by some Bar-B-Que restaurant up in Cobb county we went outside and did touch-up trim painting. We were there from 8 till about 3 so we could see the house being dedicated to our owner.

It was a great experience and I see myself doing it again soon. I think it would be cool for a group of friends to go down. Hey, you get free food and get to look at cute guys who are handy! No seriously, these houses were built in 7 consecutive saturdays with a LOT of hard work and generosity. I might not have done the grunt work, but I did do something. It's a very humbling to give back to those less fortunate. So, let me know if you want to go sometime and lets get a team set up. Whoop Whoop. Here are a few pictures that I took throughout the day from my phone.


"Before" picture of the house we worked on/in...notice there is No grass or shurbs

Mom and I @ 8AM in all our morning glory

The Tub in all it's Nastiness which sparkled when I was finished. I had NO running water to rinse with AT ALL, so it was very interesting to clean. I ended up 'stealing' per say other people's water bottles to rinse off the grime until mom brought over buckets of water from the other houses. I used whole roll of paper towels get get the Crap out of the bottom after the water drained.

The 'Famous' Clark Howard with us during out break. As you can see the sun was out for all of 2 hours and we even got rained on.
Side note: Poor Clark had a 'Cliff Hanger in his noise the whole day and no one told him. I couldn't bring myself to tell him. Oh Yeah, I forgot my sunglasses so I'm sportin' mom's Brighton ones. So 'mom stylish'!

This is the new owner of our house. She is a single mother of a little boy and she was a 'Baker'. I hadn't heard that term on a long time. Her whole family was there all day helping do odd things. It was really cool seeing them be so hands on.

TA-DA... The final product. Everything was finished and all that was needed was carpet and then she gets to move in the weekend after Easter. These houses were so stinking cute. I want one. I just don't want to live on the south side of Atlanta.