2007/07/04

Habitat for Humanity

Finally, I signed up for the Habitat for Humanity in Charlotte last Sat!

I woke up at 5:30 am on Sat morning to get ready for the 7 am volunteer event near Randolph road. The construction site was located in a small winding road and after circling around, I finally got to the construction site - feeling worried at first - as I signed up the event alone, I was nervous that the construction site will be filled with workers and I'd be totally overwhelmed with saws and drills, etc. So it was really a relief to find some people wearing "Team Bank of America" shirt and also coincidentally found some familiar faces from the dragon boat racing.

There were three volunteer groups from different organizations working on two houses that day. One house was still under construction and most men were assigned to help framing and roofing. The team lead looked at me as if I am too tiny to help and assigned me to go to another house to help with painting. Ahhh....I thought that I can help with some true construction work. But painting is not bad - actually, it was very fun - with the long roller, short roller and the paint brush, the assignment was to paint everything, including the ceiling and the door, except for the window frame, for the entire house.

I learned that you really need to put some pressure onto the wall when you paint so that the paint won't be dripping and adjust the way/place you hold the roller to make sure you can paint the wall from top to bottom at one time without leaving any mark.

By the end of the day, I finished painting one bedroom and one closet - and I also got some highlight on my bang with my pants in polka dots ... whew, quite a workout but I'll certainly come back again!!