IB Survivalists : Creativity Action Service

Habitat for Humanity - Round 2

Hi Everyone!

As you may know, we are on Spring Break this week! Apart from relaxing and studying, Melissa and I decided to spend one of our days doing a CAS project. We have done this CAS activity, Habitat for Humanity, only one time before (we wrote a blog post about it). We thoroughly enjoyed it as it tested our construction skills. So, on Wednesday at 7:45am, we showed up to the site of the build in our jeans despite the excruciatingly humid weather.

We started out by sweeping the floor of the partially built house. This was a time-taking assignment since there was trash everywhere. But once we finished, the house looked spick and span - on the inside at least. After cleaning the floor, we were tasked to lay down black felt paper. What this would do is protect the floor from paint or scratches whenever the sheet rock for the wall would be brought in. So, we had to measure the felt to fit each room, and duck tape it down. It was fun to do the hallway, because it was like rolling out a red carpet (except ours was less glamorous). After laying down the felt, Melissa and I were split up to do two different jobs. Mine was to use a foam gun to put insulation into the holes in the wall that were drilled for wires to pass through. Melissa's job was to caulk the outer edges of all of the windows. That job took us until lunchtime to complete. At lunch, there was no sink to wash our hands. Melissa and I had to use about 20 bottles of hand sanitizer instead! Afterwards, we had an unpleasant encounter with the Porta-Potties and got back to work. Our next job was to do touch-ups to the paint job on the side of the house. We got to balance our ladders in mud and reach the highest points, which was interesting to say the least. I felt a bit like Evel Knievel (the famous dare devil). The painting task was the last thing we did for the day!

Well, that about sums up our day volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. It's an excellent organization that you should definitely consider joining. Here are a few pictures of us in action: