I am into my sixth year here in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, working as a site supervisor with Habitat for Humanity. I am truly blessed to have had the opportunity to work with over 18,000 volunteers in that time. I don't remember all of their names, but if you go onto FB, you will probably see a picture of them.
     The majority of those volunteers were out- of- towners who gave up a week of their lives to come to help rebuild Tuscaloosa . This past 12 weeks, however, we had a steady stream of local help. The City of Tuscaloosa, led by it's young Mayor Walt Maddox, sponsored a new home that would be built all with some of the 400 city employees from all of the different departments. The Mayor gave them all a day off with pay in order to sign up to work on the future home of Doris Carpenter. Ms. Margaret, who works in the mayor's office coordinated the effort with a magnificent Excel spreadsheet that listed all of the 12 weeks worth of city volunteers.
     The original 12 weeks of work scheduled to be needed to complete the 1200 sq.ft, 3 bedroom home ended up taking only 6 weeks to complete. Margaret kept saying to me in the first few weeks, "Peter, you need to slow it down!"  As it turned out, we went on to complete an additional 5 rehab projects with those who had signed up for weeks 6 thru 12.
     All of these fine folks had a willing heart to do whatever was required of them and all worked hard at the tasks assigned, stretching themselves while outside their comfort zones . I remember one day when it happened that we would be installing tar paper on the new plywood of a re-roof. The crew was mostly middle aged women who had never before been on scaffolding, much less walked around on a new roof. We stretched them and they did well. No one got hurt and the rain didn't get in too much before the metal roof went on.
      It was a great partnership and we hope to do it again some day. Had a great home dedication last week.
    Now for a new topic- the 1st annual Brothers Build. In Thansgivings past, it has been my family's tradtion to gather our clan at my younger sister Mary's home in Maryland. This year, however, Mary is trying to sell her home and didn't feel up being the charming hostess. My former wife and I have 5 grown sons. The last three or four years we never got 100% participation of all five. They live in 5 different states (Florida, Ohio, Md., Va. and Alabama)
So, this year, my son Alex (he's the one who lives here) and I came up with the idea of the Brothers Build. We floated the idear and all 5 plus Bob's fiancé Sheila and Sheila's mom and little sister made it down here! It was great! We fed them all on Thanksgiving day and then drove out an hour to Aliceville and worked them Friday and Saturday on David and Annie's new home. Installed a bunch of vinyl soffit and siding. I had a banner made up and hope I can just have a small patch that says 2nd made up and re-use it for next years, hopefully gathering more of the clan too.
     I am taking the week off between Christmas and New Year in search of an old friend. I will keep you posted.