Last Saturday, April 13th, Habitat Riverside had a wonderful day tearing down an old foreclosed house with volunteers from Bank of America. The abandoned house on Mill Creek Street resides in Jurupa Valley. Jurupa Valley is ranked as one of the top areas in California experiencing blight and foreclosure. Volunteers from Bank of America came in bright and early Saturday morning with great attitudes and plenty of enthusiasm. They knew by the end of the day, Habitat Riverside would have a fresh start to rehabilitating this house.
Our goal that day was to pretty much gut a very large portion of the house. The beginning of the volunteer day started with a safety orientation (of course!), an outlay of our demolition plan, and a morning prayer. Soon after, the volunteers got to work. Some of the eager volunteers even aimed to finish the demolition before the end of the volunteer day. The Bank of America volunteers got rid of all the deteriorated materials in the house in just about three hours! These volunteers were definitely up for the challenge!
So much was removed from the house! During the demolition process, the volunteers saw that the house was in worse shape. The volunteers quickly removed the old laminate flooring, and realized that there was extreme water damage. With great team work, the volunteers took off broken tile from the kitchen walls and removed the faulty appliances. Some of the volunteers also helped drill and take out the fragmented concrete in the back yard, while others removed the chicken wire and plastic that was placed inside the walling of the garage. They also took out the antiquated cabinets in the kitchen, unusable plumbing, the droopy doors and their frames.
Much was rapidly accomplished that day, in fact more than Joe Michalak (Habitat Riverside’s construction project coordinator) could have hoped for! In fact, Joe came back from the volunteer day saying he would like to personally and on behalf of Habitat For Humanity Riverside thank the Bank Of America Volunteers For all of their her work. He is looking forward to many more experiences with this wonderful group of volunteers.
