Women Build 2012 St. Paul home week 1

Women Build started a new house Monday, September 10, 2012 at 585 Cook on the east side of St. Paul. Throughout the week, the noise of working tools and happy chatter of eager women filled the neighborhood. Some curious folks kept tabs on our progress and were happy to see the site take on a new life.

The first day, Rhonda—site supervisor extraordinaire, had the site cordoned off with "Caution' tape as all that was in place was an eight foot deep hole with concrete basement walls in place. Our energetic group of women builders was composed of "friends of Esther." Esther is a Habitat board member who knows how to get things done and has a legion of followers who appreciate her drive and commitment to the mission of affordable housing. One gal remarked that she could call on as many friends as Esther did, but would have a hard time mustering up 16 willing souls who would actually show up and work hard all day. After an overview of the project and quick introductions, the group put hammers and nails into action and locked on the sill plates before lunch. Half of the group tackled the garage and got it started as well. Lunch was provided by another board member and disciple of Esther: Yvette Mullen. It was a robust assortment of salads, sandwiches and snacks that gave us the strength to continue our quest.

Tuesday brought very warm temps and another batch of willing and busy workers who finished moving the floor trusses in place as well as getting the garage walls up and making excellent progress despite the daytime high of 95 degrees. Lunch (my favorite pastime), was provided by Dee and Doug Velline and Kris Johnson. There was plenty of food for the gang that consisted of the AmeriCorps workers. We even had a few token males, but they were good sports...although they passed up the opportunity to sport the nifty purple women build T-shirts!

The next day brought much more delightful temps, but also the "R" word. We made progress in the morning, but had to huddle up under a makeshift tarp we put up over the garage for lunch (Brines, mmmmm). The rain proved to be a mere distraction as the women from API (a construction group consortium) headed up the hill after lunch to another habitat house that needed a touch of paint. The API gals took every paint brush and roller in sight and grabbed buckets of paint and had the whole interior painted in an hour (a few noses got painted in the process as well!) Suffice to say, we outpaced the amount of work available to us and were excused early for good behavior.

By Thursday, we were on a roll and squared all the framing necessary to start the floor on the house. Our small group of 5 finished up the day with half the flooring in place and a few blisters from all the hammering. It was rewarding to see such progress in such a short amount of time. And lunch was again provided by Kris and her parents.

Finally, on Friday, we were back at full strength with a crew of women from the professional organization, 100 Wise Women. Some of the volunteers had never been on a Habitat site before and were extremely impressed with the organization and abilities of the others. By the end of the day, and true to the name of their organization, everyone had acquired new skills and confidence in their ability to take on something entirely outside their usual scope! Proof positive was the fact that the garage now had a roof on top (for future rainy day lunching), and the house walls were nailed together and sheathed and ready for raising Monday morning when a new group of dedicated volunteers come to carry the on the spirit of working together for the good of the community.

Thanks so much to all of our volunteers and lunch providers! You made our first week of the 2^nd 2012 Women Build house build highly productive and fun for all!

Check your calendars and come join us for a day – we’ll be on site until mid-November and have lots of volunteer opportunities.

Mary Wingfield

Women Build Committee

P.S. Are you looking to get more involved with Women Build? Do you have one or two weekdays open each month? Then you may be interested in joining our WomenBuild Regular Crew!

Who: Women who will be able to volunteer regularly once or twice a month at the Women Build site.

When: 8:30 to 4:00pm. We will have two build days each month - the first Friday and the third Thursday.

Please call or e-mail Riley if you are interested in joining the Crew! (612) 305-7166 or riley.moynihan@tchabitat.org