noelleprice (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} noelleprice) wrote,@ 2006-11-02 21:40:00 |
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Miss Kim Brown's House
This is Miss Kim Brown, with her daughter Kimberly.
She is the president of our affiliate's homeowner association, and an amazing woman of strength and grace. It is my honor to be a part of the building of her house.
Kim's house was started many months ago but hit several major snags, between materials issues and permitting problems. Once we were finally able to get rolling again, we got her house from forms to wall-raising in a little over two weeks. Miss Kim took the day off work to be there when we poured the footings. It was quite a day of celebration and she encouraged us all to sign our names in the surface of the footing (which only needs to be smooth where the block stacks are going to go). Rock told Miss Kim that if index cards, printed backwards, were nailed to the inside of the forms the ink would transfer into the concrete as it cured, so just before the pour, she and a couple of the volunteers were busily writing messages of hope and scriptures and prayers onto cards and hammering away.
Throughout the week-and-a-bit process from footings to subfloor detailed in the previous entry on construction methods, Kim came by every day to see what had happened. After so much time going by with little or no progress, she was overwhelmed by the changes now happening on a daily basis. Nearly every evening she would call Rock or our construction manager Rebecca, thankful to the point of tears. She would cry, they would cry - this is pretty much how we roll around here.
One evening near sunset after the subfloor was completed, I happened to drive by the site. There was Miss Kim's car, doors open, gospel cranked on the radio, going to town with a can of spray paint. She looked a little sheepish at first when I caught her, then just beamed.
After the walls were framed and most of them put in place, it was time for Miss Kim's ceremonial "wall-raising". She brought homemade gumbo for everyone on site. In attendance were the volunteers who had done the decking and built the walls, our office staff, board members and directors, construction staff, and some of Kim's friends and family. We had a brief time of reflection and prayer, and then the final wall was put into place.
From left in the first group pic are Kim, head honcho Jim, construction manager Rebecca, Rock, and volunteer coordinator Caitlin. The older gentleman in the tan cap is the saint who donated the land for Kim's house in honor of his wife, who passed away recently and was along with him a big supporter of Habitat. The picture of me is taken with me standing in her front doorway - those beautiful trees are what she'll see from her front porch.
This last one pretty much says it all...
This is Miss Kim Brown, with her daughter Kimberly.
She is the president of our affiliate's homeowner association, and an amazing woman of strength and grace. It is my honor to be a part of the building of her house.
Kim's house was started many months ago but hit several major snags, between materials issues and permitting problems. Once we were finally able to get rolling again, we got her house from forms to wall-raising in a little over two weeks. Miss Kim took the day off work to be there when we poured the footings. It was quite a day of celebration and she encouraged us all to sign our names in the surface of the footing (which only needs to be smooth where the block stacks are going to go). Rock told Miss Kim that if index cards, printed backwards, were nailed to the inside of the forms the ink would transfer into the concrete as it cured, so just before the pour, she and a couple of the volunteers were busily writing messages of hope and scriptures and prayers onto cards and hammering away.
Throughout the week-and-a-bit process from footings to subfloor detailed in the previous entry on construction methods, Kim came by every day to see what had happened. After so much time going by with little or no progress, she was overwhelmed by the changes now happening on a daily basis. Nearly every evening she would call Rock or our construction manager Rebecca, thankful to the point of tears. She would cry, they would cry - this is pretty much how we roll around here.
One evening near sunset after the subfloor was completed, I happened to drive by the site. There was Miss Kim's car, doors open, gospel cranked on the radio, going to town with a can of spray paint. She looked a little sheepish at first when I caught her, then just beamed.
After the walls were framed and most of them put in place, it was time for Miss Kim's ceremonial "wall-raising". She brought homemade gumbo for everyone on site. In attendance were the volunteers who had done the decking and built the walls, our office staff, board members and directors, construction staff, and some of Kim's friends and family. We had a brief time of reflection and prayer, and then the final wall was put into place.
From left in the first group pic are Kim, head honcho Jim, construction manager Rebecca, Rock, and volunteer coordinator Caitlin. The older gentleman in the tan cap is the saint who donated the land for Kim's house in honor of his wife, who passed away recently and was along with him a big supporter of Habitat. The picture of me is taken with me standing in her front doorway - those beautiful trees are what she'll see from her front porch.
This last one pretty much says it all...
