Haley Hodge
3/7/15 and 4/11/15 and 4/25/15 @ 8:30-4:30
Habitat for Humanity
Laura Ealylealy@habitatgsf.org
For my PACT project I am volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. I am working on one site for the entire length of my project so that I can see the progress and hopefully see the final result when families move into the homes. The site I'm working at is a 4 acre plot of land in South San Fransisco which will ultimately have 28 homes on it (two stories, built to fit on average 5 people).
Each day you volunteer, you decide which job you're going to do for that day. The first day I decided to do framing - we essentially created the structures for three major walls for one of the houses. The second time I worked on dry wall - we would cut and fit dry wall and then secured it in the framing. The third visit, I worked on plumbing - we dug ditches to fit the piping and also worked on finished in the bathrooms and kitchens of two different homes.
The experience was very different from what I had anticipated. I knew that the work days would be long when I first signed up, but I thought that meant that we were not expected to work efficiently, that we would have to take a lot of time to learn what we were doing before really making any real progress. But I was pleasantly surprised on the first day when we had no longer than 20 minutes of instruction and then went straight to working. At the end of each day, I feel like I have really made a significant amount of progress and have really helped. Having 8 hours to work, you are able to visibly see the progress you're making, whether that is putting up three walls, finishing an entire house with drywall, or completing the plumbing for an entire floor, you feel like you have helped the construction team take the project one big step further, closer to the final result. Because of this, every day so far feels completely fulfilling. Going into it, I honestly thought that my weekends spent doing this would feel partially like time wasted being taught how to do things and driving there and back, but the complete opposite has been true. Everyone working and volunteering work hard and efficiently, creating a positive and effective work environment which pushes me to work that much harder, and ultimately leaving me feeling like not a single minute was wasted doing anything but pushing the project forward. While unfortunately I don't get to see the effects of this work first handedly (seeing the families move in and live there), stepping back and looking at all the 28 homes, I can easily tell how many people this is going to help and how it's going to positively affect the neighborhood and families in need.
