On Saturday April 12, we had the wonderful opportunity to work with members from UTC Aerospace. Since their job consists of making airplane parts for a living, we were sure they could handle a simple paint job! Turns out, they were more than qualified at being painters-for-a-day. No task was too big for this group of 40. Since there were so many volunteers, we decided to take on two houses that morning. We started out the morning with Dave, Habitat for Humanity, Riverside’s Project Coordinator, giving the morning safety talk and prayer. After the talk, Dave split the volunteers up so we could conquer both houses.
One group had the chance to work on Barbara’s house. Barbara, our homeowner, is a recent retiree from Alford Unified School District, so she is living on a fixed income. She has been living in Rancho Caballero for 18 years. Recently, the park asked that she get her house painted because it was looking a little run down. The paint on her house was a bit faded and the long sides of the home were dirty and stained.
Barbara was such a joy to work with. She was very hands on and was outside conversing with members from UTC the majority of the time. She even brought out her iPad and took pictures of our volunteers for her own personal keepsake.
The UTC Volunteers that worked on Barbara’s house were definitely some hard working volunteers. We had about 20 volunteers working on the house so the painting got done fairly quickly. We even had two of our future homeowners, Andrew Ferguson and Casey Reynolds, volunteer with us too! Andrew brought two of his friends, whom also had painted with us before, so they were veteran painters already!
Our second group had the chance to paint Danielle’s home. Danielle is a single mom with an 8-year-old daughter named Brooklyn. She has been trying to keep up with the home ever since they moved into Rancho Caballero a year ago. The park also informed her she needed to get her home painted because it was looking faded and stained on the sides and front of the house. Thankfully, a little TLC from our volunteers was all it needed to look like new again!
At Danielle’s house, all the UTC members were so pumped to beautify the house they even started to hammer in some nails that were sticking out and trying to fix up little kinks around the house. Joe had to remind them that today they were painters! There were also a couple of professional painters from UTC volunteering with us as well so we definitely put them to work right away! Of course, we gave them the toughest part of the home to work on, which was the front side of the house. No complaints from our painters though, they were naturals! During the volunteer day, Danielle came out and painted with our volunteers. She was such a hard worker and very friendly with all the UTC members. She even kept painting when everyone left! What a trooper! All of the volunteers had a great time bonding with one another and with our homeowner, Danielle.
Deanna, the volunteer coordinator for UTC was such a sweetheart and had a small lunch break for the UTC members. She scheduled out an Italian Ice vendor to come to the park for all the volunteers to enjoy that day. It was perfect because around lunchtime the sun started to come out. The sweet Italian ice break helped the volunteers finish their projects. A little sugar to help finish up the houses definitely did the trick!
What a great volunteer day we had with UTC Aerospace. Compared to making airplane parts, I’m sure painting was a breeze for the UTC crew!
Thank you, UTC Aerospace, for helping us freshen up Danielle and Barbara’s home!
