What an awesome paint day we had on Saturday, January 18th. Although it was a small group, UCR’s Theta Tau Engineering Fraternity and Maria, a future Habitat homeowner and her cousins, took the project head on! We worked on a house in Moreno Valley, owned by Juan and Magdalena. The park owners asked Habitat for Humanity, Riverside if we could help out the family because they are on a limited income. Unfortunately, because of this they are not able to afford to paint or build the 3rd set of steps for their home. Fortunately, Habitat stepped in and were more than happy to help out Juan and Magdalena beautify their house!
We started out the day with a safety talk and a prayer led by Dave, the Project Coordinator. Afterwards, we split the group up into teams. Each team’s goal was to conquer one side of the house, so essentially there were four teams, one for each side of the home. Our future Habitat homeowner, Maria, and her cousins came out to help as well. It’s always nice to see future Habitat homeowners working hard to get their sweat equity done.
When we got started, we asked if Magdalena, the homeowner and her daughter, Jennifer if they wanted to join us in painting their home. They were more than happy to help us out. Many of the guys were not too fond of getting the lower parts of the house because they were all too tall. They left it to the girls to finish the job! It was no problem though because we had Jennifer! She had the designated job of finishing the bottom portion of the house which she did a great job in, might I add!
The house was well on it’s way to completion by 12pm, but that was when Anthony, one of the Theta Tau members, had to leave early. They wanted a quick picture with all the group members before he left, so we all took a break and rounded up the group. Our Work-Study Intern, Jenine, took a couple pictures of the group, and then Anthony was off! The group then resumed to their spots to finish up the last couple areas that still need to be painted. At this point, everyone was working on the trim color since we were all pretty much finished painting the base color of the house.
By the end of the day, the sun was beating down on us pretty hard and it started to get real hot. Thankfully, we finished around 1pm which was right on time! The rest of Theta Tau, Maria, and her cousins all joined in for a group photo with Magdalena, Jennifer, her daughter, and their baby! Juan, who was out for the day, pulled up in his car right on time to squeeze into the picture!
Another paint day, accomplished! Thanks a lot, Theta Tau.
