Saturday, May 18, 2013

The Post-Alabama Buildvention Post

Sorry for the Delay on this everyone. I can’t believe it has already been a month since the Alabama Buildvention. I have to say it was an amazing experience. I met some amazing martial artists from around the country, made some great friends, built a house, sweet talked some lumber guys into cutting us a deal, did some training during a tornado emergency, and even played volleyball some mennonites who had hosted us for dinner (and we totally got our butt kicked!).


First I want to say Thank you!!!! Thank you for all coming together and contributing to the project! With your help we raised enough funds to pay for the entire house build.

As a school we were able to raise just over $3000 for Hero Housing. All the money went directly into the budget to build a home for Ms. Georgia Woods. The total we raised between everyone who went was just under $20,000.

Imagine if we could come together to do something like this within our own community. We find a need and we come together as a school to make it happen. The possibilities are endless.

Amazing things going on in Greensboro

When you drive into downtown Greensboro (population 2443) and it is an interesting site. Almost all the retail spots are abandoned/in shambles. But there are a few spots where HERO Housing has made their mark. Hero Bike and the Pie Lab are two such places that Hero has brought to the community. They provide great services and help Hero fund other restoration projects in the town. As you drive around town, most of the houses are also in pretty bad shape. But every so often you see a modest but great looking house. It serves as another symbol of HERO's amazing work in the community.

A short drive from downtown we saw a park that HERO renovated. They were able to get Tony Hawk to design the skate park. There is even a playground made out of recycled mouthwash barrels donated by Colgate (it actually has a minty smell when you walk in). They took the leftover barrels and made them into huge rain barrels that power the toilets in the bathrooms. HOW COOL IS THAT!? And they get college level design students to donate their time to design everything.

And the head of HERO - Pam Dorr? Well lets just say you can’t meet that woman, hear what she is doing, and feel like you ever have an excuse to not get something done. She is quite amazing!
The House and more!

The house build went extremely well. A tornado warning delayed our efforts a little bit, but we were able to get the majority of the house done. We all had varied experience with construction work, but everyone was able to play a part. Many of the more experience builders took the time to mentor everyone else as we were building. Everyone was patient and helpful and made the whole experience extremely enjoyable.

Because of the amount of people there we were also able to help on a couple other restoration projects HERO had going on.

In the 3 days we were able to frame the whole house, side it, build a porch, and complete the whole roof. We also painted a massive ceiling, laid down a hardwood floor,

I am happy to report that Ms. Georiga's house is now finished and she is moving in this weekend!

What I learned

This section could be long as I learned so much, but I will try to sum up.

-Giving back to a community in need is an amazing feeling
-We are so fortunate to have so many things and we take much for granted
-You can always do more than you think you can
-We should all strive to leave every place we go a little better than how we found it
-We should always strive to set the bar as high as possible in everything we do.
-I have some pretty amazing students

And much more!

We are definitely going back next year. April 9th-12th. I hope more of you will join us!

I also need to give a shout out to our two junior assistants Brad Palmer and Owen Mahoney. They were two of the most popular people at the event. They worked hard, took initiative, never complained, and really represented themselves and the school incredibly well. I remember waking up one morning around 6am. I looked around and didn't see Brad or Owen anywhere. I walk into the kitchen off the gymnasium we were camped in to get some coffee. I see them running around helping to make everyone breakfast! This was one of the many of their impressive moments during the whole trip. Thanks for making me look good guys! haha!

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