Getting Our Hands Dirty

Sunday night at 6pm was when we had our official Habitat For Humanity (H4H) orientation with Joanne (our contact from the local Habitat Affiliate).  Joanne explained the ins and outs of the week, as we ate some baked ziti and salad that was provided by Amber, a future Habitat homeowner.  All individuals who hope to be eligible for a Habitat house have to put in time identified as "sweat equity." Sweat equity is achievable through any effort that helps further the H4H mission.  A certain amount of your sweat equity hours have to be met on an actual job site, but you can also fulfill your "elective hours" through other efforts such as speaking engagements or in Amber's case, feeding a group of volunteers.

As I noted in the initial post, the church is located about two football fields from the beach.  We have one main carpeted room where we all sleep, with a stage that we keep our belongings on.  In addition there are several small classrooms in the church that we can use for storage, peace an quiet, changing rooms, etc.. .  There are several bathrooms but only one shower (which I learned the hard way, has a timer on it's hot water supply).  For the most part, we shower at a racquetball club near the work site after our day has ended.

Our Digs: Flagler Beach United Methodist Church

One big bedroom. And a jam-packed stage.

Also present at dinner was John, our the construction site manager, and his wife Sandra.  John and Sandra are SO kind and personable, their accents confirmed that they've lived in Florida for their entire lives.  They filled us in that we should watch out for jellyfish, avoid sharks, and step lightly when crossing the street as we would be catching the kick-off of bike week on Friday.

We started out our Monday morning at 8:15 when Joanne came by the church to guide us to the work site.  We arrived at a house that had a completed exterior with a group of volunteers painting the inside.  Meanwhile, this house was not only lacking interior paint, but also lacking a front and back lawn.  Cue sodding.  We had three truckloads of sod delivered, along with 20 yards of my favorite landscaping supply...mulch (hope you can sniff out the sarcasm there).  Our tasks for the day included sodding the entire property as well as planting some trees and shrubbery.  The bonus of the day was that when you least expected it, you would find a couple of fire ants hanging out in your piece of sod.  Surprise!

pre-sodding

The true bonus was that we had lunch donated to us from a place called "Sonny's BBQ" which made us a ton of pulled pork and pulled chicken sandwiches.  I've always enjoyed some good pulled pork, but had never tried pulled chicken - I did on Monday, and it was freaking amazing.  Better than the fire ants and the food though was meeting and working with the homeowners.  The one man's name was Max, and his wife's name escapes me at the moment - but they both came to the US from Haiti 20 years ago and met each other through their church.  They were amazing people to talk to and work with, as they logged their sweat equity hours.

Group shot w/ homeowners

John had anticipated that we would need two days to sod.  Well we burned through all the mulch and sod by the end of day 1.  Not a bad way to kick off the week.  We made a quick visit to the RB club for showers, got home, ate a quick dinner of grilled cheese and soup, and then had to vacate the church due to an event that they were holding.  We passed the time by going to a local bowling alley, where they gave us a great group deal.  After laying some eggs in my first two games with a 94 and a 70-something, I closed it off with a 125...not even halfway to 300, but I'll settle for it =/

I ended the day with another cold shower.  All hot water I've ever used in my life: consider yourself officially appreciated.

Sod anyone?

John's truck.

Done and done.

Ian got carried away with the camera.

View from the bridge. Welcome to Flagler Beach.

Road to the left, beach to the right.