More than hammers

We want to Welcome our newest Follower:

Mike

Thanks for joining us!
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Our time in Virginia Beach working with Habitat for Humanity has been more than just pounding nails.

In addition to building houses on the construction site, Habitat for Humanity is an organization which must be well run to be successful.  The South Hampton Habitat for Humanity chapter has built 171 homes since it began in 1988.  That is success!

On Wednesday morning, we met at the Habitat offices for a morning of meetings and training before we went over to the Marriott for the primary fundraising event of the year - a luncheon.

There were about 12 or 13 of us gathered at the Habitat offices to hear from Karl who is the director of planning and logistics.  He went over the next eight house that are in the works and discussed items of interest about each house and neighborhood.

After a that we adjourned to the warehouse where Joe, the construction manager, provided some training on insulation, hanging doors and building window sills.  They have a great facility and a full size mock up where he could explain and show us the finer details.

Next, we joined the Habitat volunteers and staff for the primary fundraising event of the year.  It takes about $80,000 to build a home in this area.  That includes land and a lot of materials that are donated in addition to volunteers.  A good number of companies donate a couple of days on site to do specialty works sometimes such as roofing, siding, windows or plumbing.  The local technical training college wire the houses using students.  Of course their leader is a certified electrician who keeps a close eye on their work before it gets inspected.

There was a very good turnout at the luncheon.  The announced goals were to raise $200,000.  Not sure how they did but hopefully they hit their mark.

A highlight for us at the luncheon was to meet and talk with Thomas King who was is one of the two new home owners at the Red Mill site where we are working.  We got to meet his wife Dotty, a few weeks ago when we were working at their house at Red Mill.  He is a very sharp guy with five kids and he works for the city of Norfolk.  It was great to meet him and spend a few minutes talking.

We left after lunch we drove up to Fairfax and are currently staying with friends for a few days.  It is interesting to get back into the old neighborhood.  I went into my old office yesterday and it was good to see some friends.  Though I miss the people, I do not regret being retired.  (Are you kidding?)

Yesterday I received a call from Carol Jarvis from GlobalTV in Vancouver, Canada.  She indicated her program "16:9" is going to air on November 14 at 6:30 PM.  They will be doing a 20 minute documentary on Meghan and Adam.  We are excited and look forward to that.
If I understand it correctly, Global TV is one of the three major TV networks in Canada and 16:9 is similar to our own "48 Hours" or "Dateline".   It will also be available online after it airs.

On a related note, we got a package in the mail for Adam which included 47 letter from students at an international school in Bogota, Columbia.  A teacher read them the story of Meghan and Adam and they decided to write letters of condolence and encouragement to Adam.  Pretty touching.  Pretty amazing.

Hope you all are having a great week and thanks for joining us on the Roadrunner Chronicles.