Habitat for Humanity
Booger. This morning, I spent 30 minutes typing a blog and when I went to post it, it simply disappeared. Lesson learned: type these in Microsoft Word, save, and then post.
Eh, keeps me from being too chatty if I have to type things twice.
Saturday, I spent the day working at Habitat for Humanity’s Home Center in Port Charlotte, Fl. I was hoping to work on a build so I could pick up some skills that could come in handy when I get home, but the last bits of Rita put the current projects on hold. The Home Center just opened in June; it’s essentially a thrift store version of Home Depot. All items are donated, both by individuals in the form of used and left-over materials (like the $15 fridge, which worked just fine and the cabinet door with “Carl is a But Head” scrawled on it in crayon), and by builders in the form of brand-new surplus (like the gorgeous $800 slipper-shaped, fire-engine red Jacuzzi). All proceeds support Habitat, which is a huge force in this community.
So Saturday I spent the day in service to three old guys named Dick, Ray, and Chuck, who worked me harder than I’ve been worked in eons. In fact, for the first three hours, I swept every inch of the facility. It was kind of an education, actually, as I swept up hundreds, if not thousands, of fascinating dead bugs, frogs, lizards, and spiders that looked like they could easily devour a small child. The rest of the day, I helped customers load appliances and windows and doors in their vehicles, rearranged the cabinet door section, and played tag with a 4-foor long black snake (Ray swore it wouldn’t hurt me, but told me that if I saw a small skinny snake, I should “run like hell” because they have pygmy rattlers on the grounds). I returned home bruised, bleeding from my knuckles and a gash on my foot from where a woman dropped her end of a window I was helping her carry, covered in dead bugs, and smelling like a racehorse. It’s Monday now, and I still ache in odd places (what did I do to my ribcage?).
At no time did I really feel like I was doing anything really important for humanity, per se, but at the end of the day, we’d taken in at least $8K, and it ended up being one of the better days of my exile thus far. It felt good to do something.
Today when I turned on MSNBC, I saw that NBC and Habitat had turned Rockefeller Plaza into “Humanity Plaza” this week and Habitat was building HOMES, whole houses to ship down to the Gulf Coast as part of a program called Operation Home Delivery in NYC, Los Angeles, and Jackson, Miss, with plans to expand to other areas. There was also a separate area sponsored by Children Helping Children, where kids were putting together “back yards in a box” (toys, seeds, plants, etc) and painting murals to place in Gulf Coast public schools (which drove me to tears—the murals read “Welcome Home Love the Children of NYC”).
A long time ago, people asked me where they could donate money, and at the time I just didn’t know who was going to end up doing the “good work.” The thing that I like about Habitat is that they need people power as much as they need money. I don’t have a lot of money to send to charities. I usually do my best to send around $50 to every cause that moves me, but that’s the most I can do on my salary. But Saturday, I felt like my seven hours of work was worth so much more than $50. So, if you have more people power than cash to donate, like I do, look up your local Habitat.
Eh, keeps me from being too chatty if I have to type things twice.
Saturday, I spent the day working at Habitat for Humanity’s Home Center in Port Charlotte, Fl. I was hoping to work on a build so I could pick up some skills that could come in handy when I get home, but the last bits of Rita put the current projects on hold. The Home Center just opened in June; it’s essentially a thrift store version of Home Depot. All items are donated, both by individuals in the form of used and left-over materials (like the $15 fridge, which worked just fine and the cabinet door with “Carl is a But Head” scrawled on it in crayon), and by builders in the form of brand-new surplus (like the gorgeous $800 slipper-shaped, fire-engine red Jacuzzi). All proceeds support Habitat, which is a huge force in this community.
So Saturday I spent the day in service to three old guys named Dick, Ray, and Chuck, who worked me harder than I’ve been worked in eons. In fact, for the first three hours, I swept every inch of the facility. It was kind of an education, actually, as I swept up hundreds, if not thousands, of fascinating dead bugs, frogs, lizards, and spiders that looked like they could easily devour a small child. The rest of the day, I helped customers load appliances and windows and doors in their vehicles, rearranged the cabinet door section, and played tag with a 4-foor long black snake (Ray swore it wouldn’t hurt me, but told me that if I saw a small skinny snake, I should “run like hell” because they have pygmy rattlers on the grounds). I returned home bruised, bleeding from my knuckles and a gash on my foot from where a woman dropped her end of a window I was helping her carry, covered in dead bugs, and smelling like a racehorse. It’s Monday now, and I still ache in odd places (what did I do to my ribcage?).
At no time did I really feel like I was doing anything really important for humanity, per se, but at the end of the day, we’d taken in at least $8K, and it ended up being one of the better days of my exile thus far. It felt good to do something.
Today when I turned on MSNBC, I saw that NBC and Habitat had turned Rockefeller Plaza into “Humanity Plaza” this week and Habitat was building HOMES, whole houses to ship down to the Gulf Coast as part of a program called Operation Home Delivery in NYC, Los Angeles, and Jackson, Miss, with plans to expand to other areas. There was also a separate area sponsored by Children Helping Children, where kids were putting together “back yards in a box” (toys, seeds, plants, etc) and painting murals to place in Gulf Coast public schools (which drove me to tears—the murals read “Welcome Home Love the Children of NYC”).
A long time ago, people asked me where they could donate money, and at the time I just didn’t know who was going to end up doing the “good work.” The thing that I like about Habitat is that they need people power as much as they need money. I don’t have a lot of money to send to charities. I usually do my best to send around $50 to every cause that moves me, but that’s the most I can do on my salary. But Saturday, I felt like my seven hours of work was worth so much more than $50. So, if you have more people power than cash to donate, like I do, look up your local Habitat.
posted by M at 7:07 PM
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