A Blitz is a process by which a house gets built in a hurry. My first experience witnessing and taking part in a blitz build was in Washington, DC, in 1991. That year, the Jimmy Carter Work Project came to town and the newpaper article said that they were going to build ten houses in five days on Benning Road in Southeast Washington. The former president and his wife had joined in partnership with Habitat for Humanity shortly after his stint as President in 1984. Many people think that he started Habitat but it is not so. He was good friends of Millard and Linda Fuller who did start Habitat in 1977. The JCWP is an annual event coming up on the fortieth year. Every other year it is an international event with the other years taking place somewhere in the US. I've participated in 12 JCWP's. Each year, it seems, they get a little more ambitious, and the number of homes to be built jumps up. In 1992, in Waterloo and Kitchener (outside of Toronto) it jumped to 20 in a week. Next year in Georgia it was 30. Two of the projects in the early 2000's in Puebla, Mexico and Manilla, Phillipines we built over 300 homes in a week with over 10,000 volunteers. Last couple of years though, the registration fee has also been inching (or dollaring) up to the point now, for the last year the registration fee for the week was $1,000. Earlier on, I used to know Rita Clemens, the registrar of the event and I could usually have her waive the fee if I agreed to be house leader.
     I've also helped on a number of blitz builds that were done by the Bay/Waveland affiliate in Mississippi . The construction director there, Mark Scott, has got it down. When our funders in Port Sulphur Louisiana suggested to Bart Tucker that Fuller Center Disaster Rebuilders do a blitz build and he agreed I called Mark. I wasn't panicking yet but I was about to. Our first blitz we were totally unprepared. Thankfully, Mark agreed to come over for a visit and hand-holding for a day the week before and saved the day. The key to successful blitz builds is preparation. All materials, tools, equipment, dumpsters and portapottys, all staged and ready way in advance is better. We had a week of notice and were way not ready. Bart had just fired our construction director, leaving myself and three loyal volunteers (average age 60-ish) Steve Marksoff, Lee Struck and Nancy McDaniel, schlepped all of the scaffold (the house was up on piers 15 feet above the ground), wood, and prebuilt a bunch of the parts and worked our little butts off. Mark came on the Thursday before the Monday start and helped with the layout and reviewed whats got to be ready, and what would be nice if it is ready- the order of things- and also gave me the confidence that we could pull this thing off . One little catch though, the Navy would be providing the 50 volunteers each day, but with different 50 each day of the 5 day blitz. It was like 5 Mondays with "This is a hammer" each day instead of having a learning curve where people know whats going on by the end of the week.
     Anyway, back to our Blitz. It started this past Monday and Brandon set it up as a two week blitz because it is our first here and he wanted to make sure it was a success and also because he wasnt sure how our subcontractors would perform. This past week we had over 60 volunteers with us and the two main groups who were to be working on Bernard's new home were seasoned veterans (Larry and Cheryl Wingers Kairos Carpenters and Lori and Terry's group from Ziegels Church in Pennsylvania) from previous campaigns. The first day of the build, the shell of the home was built and erected, including setting the trusses, plywood sheathing and black felt on the roof. Next came the subs rough in. Wednesday morning, little glitch with the insulation sub, so off to Home Depot, buy the insulation, take 22 minutes to install the whole house, and give it over to the drywall subs to hang and finish. Four hours to hang all the sheetrock in the three bedroom/two bath home (They had done this before) By Friday when all of the groups leave us (worst part of the job) the exterior was complete and interior paint was done and most of the doors were hung. All that's left for this week is the bamboo flooring, cabinets (stock, just apply finish) and some tile in the kitchen and sub trim out. Bet we go home early this week. Naaa!
      Had the pleasure for the first three days of the blitz to watch 3 other homes we have underway and worked with a great group from Wake Forest who came for their spring break. They left on wednesday, so had a chance to work on the blitz house Thursday with my buddies.