Habitat for Humanity!!

This past Saturday I went and completed the first 8 hours of community service for the final, but it was much more than that. This experience was something that I had never experienced before. It was day 1 of the project in Elgin, IL which meant "Tear it all down, break everything" day! At first it was weird taking sledge hammers and pry-bars and hitting them as hard as possible into the ceilings and walls, but after a few swings, it became a little bit more normal. By the end of the 7-hour day, there were no more ceilings and barely any walls. All the cabinets from the kitchen were taken down and taken apart and the ceilings were just support beams and the roof. It was one of the most rewarding experiences, especially because we were working all day with the new owner of the house and her niece. Getting to know the new homeowner and seeing her excitement about it was so cool! She was so excited and told us she had to put in 250 hours to "pay" for the work Habitat for Humanity is doing for her. I think that this organization is amazing! To have all of these volunteers come out and work so hard to give something back to someone in the community is amazing! There is a long list of people just waiting to be able to come out and help them, so when we asked if we would be able to come back, the volunteer organizer said that we basically had to wait in line and go on the "short notice" list!
I've always done community service, but nothing like this before! This was totally out of my community and I went there knowing one person, but ended up becoming a part of a team for 7 hours to help out someone in the community!
The woman who was going to soon live in the 95-year-old house was so appreciative of everything we were doing for her. It was obvious that she was impressed that we went there just to help. She kept asking if we had to complete community service specifically at Habitat for Humanity and we told her that we could have gone anywhere or done anything, but we really liked this organization and she was so appreciative.
Something that surprised me was the amount of adults and kids there. There were around 15 people there and only 4 kids, one of them being the new homeowner's niece. It was amazing to me that all of these adults stopped and took a day out of their lives to just help out in their community. I thought that that was so cool!
Hopefully people read this and decide that going out of their comfort zone with this project is such a cool, exciting experience! Everyone should try to do something outside of our community if possible!!

The House!













                                                                          
                                Jamie and me hanging from the "new" ceiling!