Volunteer Day @ Habitat for Humanity

Today I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity for the first time, through an event sponsored by my company. It made for a very early Saturday morning, but it was actually pretty cool. I went with Lesley and we got staffed on a project to build stairs up to two of the Habitat houses. Other projects on the site today included painting, putting up a wall in a backyard, working on a roof, and building tool sheds. Albeit I’m not exactly your ideal concrete block carrier, but it was amazing how much work got done with so many hands. It was also just interesting to learn more about Habitat as an organization.

What always gets me on volunteer projects are the people you come across. Today it was the project leaders with their construction expertise and patience with us office-acclimated volunteers (I mean, try directing two analysts and an accountant to build the top of a stairwell, hah). Or actually seeing one of the families who lived in the house next door peek their heads out of their own Habitat home. Or hearing about the couple who celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary by sponsoring the particular house we were working on, and still made it out to work on the site. It’s always about the people.

Also there, Habitat was presented with a check for $10,000 from aQuantive, which was pretty neat and unexpected from us. We still don’t know who provided our snacks and lunch (it looked very home-cooked, possibly from the church group who worked with us?). However, I did learn that the coffee laid out was donated by a local Starbucks, making this my second aQuantive sponsored-volunteer day with Starbucks contributions present (the first was at the Cheery Street Food Bank).

Anyway, after today’s work I’m pretty exhausted. I spent the rest of my Saturday cleaning off the dirt, hanging out at Ryan’s, eating pasta, and watching West Wing on his computer. Looking forward to sleeping in tomorrow.

Currently Watching
The West Wing – The Complete Fourth Season