While many of us were recuperating from the Thanksgiving holiday and empty wallets from Black Friday, our homeowners and members from UCR Global Water Brigades were awake and ready to spruce up a mobile home at Rancho Caballero Mobile Home Park. Despite the nippy weather, our volunteers showed up armed and ready with their paint brushes in hand to help out a fellow member of their community.
Sandy, a longtime resident of Rancho Caballero Mobile Home Park, has been reminded by park management to paint her home numerous times. Unfortunately with her arthritis, it was more than a struggle to do such a task. On top of that, living off of social security, it was close to impossible to afford a new professional paint job. Luckily, with Habitat for Humanity, Riverside by her side, we got the job done in no time!
Many of our Habitat Homeowners to-be, alongside our new homeowners were working together on Saturday to finish up their sweat equity. Denise, one of our new homeowners, just received the keys to her home last Wednesday, November 27th, so she was finishing up her last bit of hours for her sweat equity. It has been great seeing Denise’s face at all our volunteer days on Saturday mornings so we’re definitely going to miss her handy craftsmanship.
For others like Andrew, Gabby and Nelson, it was the beginning of many Saturday mornings with Habitat for Humanity, Riverside. Seeing as this was their very first paint day, it meant they crossed off the first hours off their sweat equity! Fortunately, one of our upcoming homeowners, Andrew, was more than ready to complete his sweat equity by bringing 6 of his friends and family with him to help out.
Many people like Arraceion, our upcoming homeowner at 11th and Ottawa, stayed on the ladder the whole day painting the trimmings around the house, with exact precision I might add. Arraceion, was actually one of the last people standing (on a ladder) trying to finish up all the detailing in the front. Jensen, one of the UCR GWB members, was painting the siding of the house, but ran into some trouble because of a board that was screwed into the patio. The board was making it hard to paint the sidings of the house so Dave and Jensen agreed to remove it so he could finish the job. With that small problem averted, the painting continued.
While everyone was hard at work, Sandy came out with a batch of homemade cookies for the volunteers as a small token of appreciation. Word got around and before you knew it one by one all the volunteers were putting their paintbrushes down in exchange for some cookies. Nelson, our upcoming Myers homeowner, even asked, “Where can I get some of those cookies?” after being one of the last ones to take his break.
Andrew was going around the house making sure everything looked good so he designated himself as our “quality control” person for the morning. Because of all his “hard work” overseeing the rest of the volunteers, he suggested that there should be an all-expense paid pizza party provided by Dave, he added jokingly! At one point in the day, Sandy, the mobile homeowner, mentioned to Dave that she had to leave for a bit, but much to our surprise, she came back with pizza for the whole group! Sandy was such a sweetheart to all of us, I mean, cookies and now pizza? It couldn’t get any better than that! And Dave mentioned that since she was so kind to bring out all the yummy food, we had to repay her in some way, and with that, all the boys gathered up to put back all the furniture on her porch after we were done painting. And who was regulating that job? Andrew, of course! He made sure all of Sandy’s furniture was put back in exactly the way she wanted. We definitely need to have Andrew on all of our paint days, for “quality control” purposes, of course!
With a total of 15 volunteers, our homeowners and the members from UCR Global Water Brigades finished Sandy’s home right on time! What a wonderful paint day, full of jokes, laughter and lots of food!
