The Habitat for Humanity Chapter at UCR has been a long time partner with Habitat for Humanity, Riverside. This lovely Saturday morning, UCR’s Habitat Chapter brought along 10 volunteers, some new and some old, to help us paint Mary Joyce’s home.
Mary Joyce lives in Rancho Caballero Mobile Home Park and has been a resident there for 10 years. Her home was starting to show its age. Some trim on the house was starting to rot and other parts of trim were coming apart from the wall paneling. Mary Joyce has had her son help her in repairing these areas, but a new paint job was definitely in order, which was more difficult for Mary Joyce to have done. So we were more than happy to step in and give her a helping hand.
That morning we had the privilege of not only working with UCR Chapter volunteers, but also Tony and his two sons, Gabriel and Marquis, came out to help us paint. Tony is a future Habitat homeowner and one of the requirements is to complete a minimum of 250 sweat equity hours in order to be able to purchase a Habitat home. Tony and his sons were starting their first sweat equity hours with us that day.
Once we had everyone signed-in, a safety orientation and morning prayer was conducted by Dave, the A Brush with Kindness Project Coordinator. Barbara, one of our volunteers, made sure we had sugar to start off the paint day, with 2 dozen donuts, for that extra kick of energy! Once the volunteers were ready to go, paint poured, rollers and brushes in hand, it was time to get to work.
While everyone was in the middle of painting, we noticed Mary Joyce’s home attracted some uninvited guest. Like all the other homes in Rancho Caballero, Mary Joyce’s home was surrounded by beautiful landscape and flowers. But with flowers, come the bees. Many of the bees were near the shed where, Jazzy, UCR’s Habitat Chapter President, was working. I guess you can say Jazzy was in a bit of a rush to finish up the shed! Those bees were not playing around that morning. There were at least a dozen roaming around the house until about 10:30am. The whole group was relieved when they started to fly away. All that buzzing noise was definitely a distraction!
At around noon, Mary Joyce was so thankful for all the hard work our volunteers put in, she brought them some snacks which included apples, chips, and crackers. The volunteers were excited to have something to snack on while they worked on the finishing touches of the home.
Brandon, who is also a part of the UCR Habitat chapter, was a former Habitat for Humanity, Riverside work-study intern for most of his college career. Unfortunately, Brandon is a senior this year and this is his last official project before graduating this June. It was a bittersweet moment for the all of us. Fortunately, Dave made his last project worthwhile, putting Brandon to work on all the high peaks of the home! Just like the olden days.
At around 2pm, we were finally done with the home! It was a long, productive, and fun day. We took our group picture, with Mary Joyce in the middle, of course. We said our goodbyes and a big “sayonara” to Brandon!
Thank you UCR Habitat for continuing to be the best! And Thank You Brandon for all the blood, sweat, and tears you’ve put in throughout the years. We’re going to miss you!
