Due to the holidays, the volunteers at the Fuller Center for Housing in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida havent been around too much. Bob Dean, the director and his helper Jim and myself have been working on the house since Saturday of last week. Last week we applied stucco to the inside and outside of the house. Yesterday installed the porch and made the stairs. Today I helped the plumbing subcontractor install the sewage ejector pit and pump (Where the drain from the house came out was lower than the inlet on the septic tank in back of the house.) Also finished the stucco on the outside corners of the house and helped Jim frame the front porch in preparing to screen it in. Tommorrow we move inside to start on the trim. Not too much, a few pocket doors to hang, some simple, decent flat crown molding to cover the joint at the ceilings. One of the pocket doors opening is wrong and has to be re-done which means tearing up some drywall that has already been finished, correct the pocket size for the door then put everything back. One of my favorite expressions in a case like this is, " There's never enough time to do it right but always enough time to do it twice".
     I shared in an earlier post about how I initially become involved with Habitat for Humanity through working on a few of the Jimmy Carter Work Projects in DC, Toronto and Georgia . After those experiences (and driving many hours to get there) I discovered a Habitat affiliate right in my back yard- the Northern Virginia Habitat. from 1994 until about 2000 I volunteered almost every saturday working on building new homes in old town alexandria, fairfax and arlington, va. after years and years of volunteering, one day in 1999 the executive director of the local affiliate pulled me aside at the site one day and suggested that we apply for a Habitat home. Although the thought had never occurred to me, since she asked, we filled out an application and were accepted as Habitat homeowners. Most affiliates have 'family selection committees' (also volunteers) who interview prospective homeowners. Our family at the time consisted of my wife Lois and I and our five little boys, Lawrence, Bob, Paul, Alex and Albert. We also had taken my sister-in-law and her two kids under our wing. We were ten people living in a 3 bedroom house in Annandale, Va. With our family size, my not-so-big salary we fit the guidlines and were accepted as homeowners . At hte time, there was under construction a development of 4 duplex townhomes in south arlington near glebe and walter reed in the nauck community. Three of the duplex had been under construction for nearly a year and our future home only had the foundation poured. Between christmas and new year of the Y2K in 1999 a bunch of volunteers came together and in that week we "blitz built" the shell of our home (and our neighbor Rene's). I had the pleasure of being house leader on my own home. We moved in in November of 2000. We pay our 20 year no-interest mortgage to the local affiliate, which in turn, uses the funds to build more simple, decent homes in Northern Virginia. Three of our sons are now scattered about the country in Miami, Florida (Eldest son Lawrence is a hibachi chef there) Number 2 son Robert graduated from VCU in Richmond (degree in Mech Eng) and has started his career with Honda R&D in Marysville, Ohio. He gets to crash new cars into a wall and gets paid for it. Number three Paul Henri is in a program call Year-up that trains, mentors and then helps with job placement in the IT world. He's about halfway thru the year. Number 4 Alex Chungil is another source of parental pride. He chose to drop out of his senior year of high school with 3-4 months to go. After returning from some concert out west, he found his switch, saw the light and got his ged, got accepted into NOVA comm college, got 4.0 for 2 years and recived a scholarship to Central Michigan University to study sociology, then he thinks law. and our mac-ney (last born in Korean) Albert has just started Nova also and is thinking about engineering also. Wife Lois is studying for a business degree at George Mason. Let's see. . . 4 in college and I take a year off to volunteer with Habitat and Fuller Centers around the country? Hmmm.    To be continued.   Peter