2018

Our home owner Miss W lives with her fiancé R, her daughter, two sons, two dogs, and a multitude of cats.  Miss W was a long distance truck driver until she suffered from career ending injuries from being on the job so long.  Her job took her to the contiguous 48 states, travelling over three million miles. She is currently waiting on a settlement for her disability.  She is leasing her house with the option to buy and she is 5 years off from owning the house.

We finished the flooring in the master bedroom and installed the recently painted molding.  We leveled the OSB sub-floor in the nearby hallway and continued the flooring from the bedroom into the hall.  We prepped the walls and ceiling of the bathroom for painting.  The bathroom was primed, painted and had ceiling molding installed. We carefully removed the molding and previous flooring from the dining room.  We then made repairs to air ducts and installed insulation and a new OSB sub-floor.  We painted molding for the hallway and the dining room which will be installed by the next team.  We also had opportunities to play with the animals in the home.

Bloopers:

• Took a different route every time we left the site and the center (we got lost).

• Stopped at a family dollar every morning ($1 WOW!).

• Fixed insulation after one of the cats jumped on the exposed insulation (multiple times).

• We opened up a new paint can by dropping it on the ground (after it fell out of our minivan).

• We persevered through 4 days of 106 degree (heat index) days, drinking many gallons of water.

We gave Miss W a green quilt and she was excited to give it to her daughter because her favorite color is green. She was extremely grateful for the work we accomplished. So much so, that she gave us food during the day and offered to help us by finishing our projects at night. We were happy to get to serve her and to work together as a team.

Our team had the opportunity to work with Ms. S, currently employed to clean homes. Our job was to help support the kitchen floor. We completed this task by removing the existing floor, repairing and replacing the joists, digging new floors, and laying a new subfloor. Our team overcame many challenges through working together, research, and perseverance.

While having no kitchen was an inconvenience to the family, Ms. S’s enthusiasm and smile shone through. Instead of being frustrated about the situation, she was nothing but thankful for the work we were doing.

Highlights from our trip include the laughter and friendship formed over peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at lunch time and Ms. S’s appreciation for her quilt to help stay warm on cold Kentucky nights. 

This week, our team served a wonderful young couple with a 6 month old baby boy, and they were also giving part time care to a 4 year old little girl. They welcomed us into their home with open arms, and we did as much as we could throughout the week to leave their home safer, warmer, and drier.

Our initial job assignment consisted of reinforcing the trusses of the mobile home. The roof was sagging and leaking in several places, causing other structural damage to the home. We reinforced trusses in the dining room, living room, and nursery, providing support for the new roof we planned to install. Due to the home being passed down through the family over the years, we had to work around limited living space and possessions that had been moved from room to room as we worked. The repair of the trusses required some demo work, which consisted of lots of dust and debris; we made sure to clean up as much as we could, in order to make a safe living space for the family during this large construction undertaking. 

As with many jobs, we encountered some obstacles, including the excruciating heat that reached a heat index of 107. It made working under and on the roof difficult, but we managed to persevere to continue our work. We also ran out of paint and roofing material on Thursday and Friday, meaning we could not finish the roof by the end of the week. While we had not accomplished all that we intended to, we know that next week’s crew will continue the work we started and leave the family with a safer, warmer, and drier home.

We were fortunate to have our family attend the ASP volunteer/family picnic on Thursday, and were able to see the joy on each of the family member’s faces as they talked and played with our team. Being able to see the Mom rest while we cared for the baby boy, seeing the Dad play with his son, and seeing the smile on the little girl’s face as she played on the swing was priceless. We were so fortunate to spend as much as time with them as we did, as they lingered until the very end, not wanting the evening to come to close. 

We were so excited to give our family the gifts we had chosen for them on Friday, including two quilts from our Priscilla Quilters, one of which was a baby quilt that was perfect for the baby boy. The mom and dad were so appreciative of the work we had done, even if we had not accomplished all that we intended to do, and were so thankful for the quilts and other gifts we gave them. To show their appreciation, they cooked us a barbecue lunch on Friday, consisting of homemade mac and cheese and burgers. We were thankful for this week and the experiences we got to share with our family, our ASP team and know that the memories we’ve made will never be forgotten!