Habitat Riverside hosted a great volunteer day in Casa Blanca in Riverside on Saturday the 30th. Sharlotte’s home has fallen into disrepair and she was cited by code enforcement for landscaping issues. Councilman Paul Davis asked Habitat Riverside if we could give her some help getting the issues corrected.
About 15 Habitat Riverside volunteers showed up bright and early Saturday morning to nice overcast skies (overcast is very nice when you are doing manual labor!) They got right to work trying the cut back the vines that had encroached onto the sidewalk blocking pedestrian access and cleared weeds and debris from the front yard. Some vines had grown through the chain link fencing making it extremely difficult to remove without damaging the fence.
Ray took to carefully disassembling the rotted areas of the fence and then rebuilding it with new materials. He used to work with concrete so he set a new fence post in concrete to make sure the new fence was sturdy. Turns out there probably never was an original fence post on that end of the fence so it’s better than new! And there is no longer any danger of it falling over or injuring someone who happened to lean against it.
As the fence was still being built, Habitat Riverside volunteers started staining the old and new to make it look the same. They even cleaned up and made some minor repairs to the very old lawn furniture and stained that to match as well. They set up an old fountain that they found in the undergrowth and put the chairs around it to stage the front yard. A great transformation!
At a future date, Habitat Riverside will go back and install a paver patio on one side of the yard and planters with drip irrigation along the fence to brighten it up for Sharlotte. Great job everyone!
