Kimberly Sweetman – Public Relations Officer (PTK Theta Chi)
PTK Theta Chi joined the Robinson Honors program to work at Habitat for Humanity’s Re-Store in Milton. Nine people showed up for the project which included diverse labor, messy projects, and a whole a lot of fun.
The first thing we had to do was find the Habitat Re-Store. We had the address, but the sign was not up on the side of the building so many of us passed it and had to be flagged down. Most of the group arrived around 9 a.m. ready to work for the Habitat Re-Store.
The Habitat for Humanity Re-store is full of interesting items which are donated and then sold to raise money for the many houses built across the city. Milton had over 70 homes built for them just last year.
Our job on Saturday was to help make the Re-store Green friendly in order to save money on the bills and allow for more money to go into the house-building projects.
We first helped put up dry-wall along the side of the store as well as taped and mudded the dry-wall which a former group had done the weekend before. I was part of the mudding group. It was so much fun to slap that mud on the wall. It had the potential to be messy, and of course we made it messy. Messy is always more fun anyway. We had the white paste on our faces and hands by the time we finished.
When we ran out of dry-wall, we were asked to go outside and finish stuccoing the outside wall which a former group had started the weekend before. In order to reach the higher parts, trucks were backed up near the wall and ladders were placed on the back of them. Those scared of heights (like me), stuck to handing up the stucco to the people on the ladders and stuccoing on ground level.
Stuccoing proved to be even more messy and fun then mudding. Those handing up the stucco sometimes had the creamy paste which looked like melted ice-cream falling from the sky onto their arms and heads. We finished that job up quickly, and were then told to put the Habitat Re-Store sign back up on the wall. Many of us commented to each other that if the sign had been on the building before we definitely would not have gotten lost. After hanging the huge sign, we decided to clean the trucks.
In true car wash style, we took a water hose and scrub brush and tried our best to get all of the stuck-on stucco off the trucks. More dry-wall pieces were then found so that we could finish up the job inside.
We truly were the finishers on Saturday. Whatever job was not finished by the previous group, we were able to accomplish. We even did extra stuff. A small group of us unloaded pallets off of a trailer and stacked them up according to size.
Many of the people working that day thanked us for our hard labor, and were amazed at how quickly our small group was able to accomplish so much.
Although they were thankful for our labor, we were even more thankful for the opportunity to help such a great organization. We may not have built a house directly, but our work helped save money for more houses to be built and that makes us just as happy as if we had built a house with our own hands.