Albany week 2


Albany week 2 

My 2nd week in Albany was just as much fun as the first.  This time we had 95 kids from 3 schools.  The first week we worked on the trailer that housed volunteer supplies and house items.  The 2nd trailer contained building materials and the 3rd trailer is the tool trailer which we worked on as well.  Week two I had a group students take everything out of the materials trailer, sort it and put it back in an organized manner.  They went back and forth between the 1st and 2nd trailer making sure one contained building supplies and the other contained house items and volunteer supplies.  Once they had everything like they wanted it, they went to house building and I turned my attention to the tool trailer.  I spent the rest of the week organizing the final trailer with an awesome helper David.  It turns out it was very helpful having someone in the trailer full time because many of the people coming in for specific tools didn’t know what they looked like or how to use them.  By the time we left, David had built a new shelf for sorting nails and other hardware and we had rearranged the trailer so that we could get much of the equipment up off the floor and hang in designated places on the walls.  Poor Jimmy, the construction supervisor.  He’s going to have to spend some time in there finding everything again. 

While David and I were busy inside the tool trailer the rest of group worked like crazy on the houses.  I am so impressed with Jimmy, that he could take 95 basically unskilled workers with just a few crew leaders and get 2 houses up in the time he did.  In the 2nd week, (on the 2nd house) they went from a concrete slab to all the outside and inside walls, the roof, windows and ready for siding.  On the first house, the finished the siding including painting, they got shingles on the roof and were ready for drywall.  Mind you that house had nothing but outside walls just 2 weeks ago.  Very, very impressive.

On Friday I spent the day running errands then Saturday I met up with my friend Cheryl.  She and I were stationed together and best buds in Dover in 1984.  We met up again Germany the following year.  We reconnected via Facebook a year or two ago and last year I met her and her husband Mike for breakfast on my way from VA to FL.  On Saturday we met for lunch after a little miss communication as to where we were going to meet.  It was so great spending time with her!  That’s one thing I really love about the military community, people can be stationed together, then part and not see each other for years.  When we meet again, it’s like no time has passed and we fall right back into the close warmth of a longtime friendship.  We spent a few hours at Applebees before I headed home to get ready to move from Albany to Plains.  Next week I’m in a disaster response course for Habitat for Humanity and I’m really looking forward to it. 

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