Habitat for Humanity

The company I work for is very much in to serving the community, so had organized a day for us to spend working with Habitat for Humanity. There were two shifts of five people each, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. I signed up for the afternoon shift.

The job site we were assigned to is out in Spenard, a neighborhood with a questionable reputation. They are working on changing that, however, and are actually doing a pretty good job of it.

Habitat for Humanity is putting up some townhouses there; twelve 4 bedroom/2 bath units all with a courtyard in front and a deck on the roof. Very nice homes, with energy efficient fixtures and other “green” features.

When we got there, we were put to work on the courtyard. The team before us had hauled 2 feet of gravel (large stones) into the area and had leveled it out. We were to put another layer of smaller gravel stones over the top and then compact it down for the pavers to go on top.

I have no strength to speak of, so I grabbed a rake and started leveling out the piles of gravel that they guys would dump in place. They had a huge mound of gravel out in the alley that they were hauling in wheelbarrows; that is very hard work! With two people working the rakes, we just kept up with the two people handling the wheelbarrows.

After a while on the rake, the foreman put me onto the compactor. This is a very heavy machine about the size of a small lawn mower. Thankfully, it’s self-motivated – so all I really had to do was guide it around the courtyard. The smaller gravel had to be compacted down into the larger gravel, so that the paving stones could go on top and be level and well-set.

Forgive me for going all “female” on you here, but I have to brag. I managed to work for 4 hours without breaking a nail – not an easy thing to do, but I did have gloves on. I’m sure that helped.