My first Habitat build! Half our group of riders arrived at the Berwick, PA site prepared to help until lunchtime. Like Habitat of Greater New Haven, the Habitat chapter in Hazleton focuses on refurbishing dilapidated houses as opposed to building new structures. The site we visited today is a duplex that was almost completly gutted to the frames. Our mission was to remove the remaining hanging cabinets in the kitchen, clean and paint the second floor hallway and remove the chipping paint from the porch railings. After an unsuccessful bid to find screwdriverrs (Sam had the only drill) to help with the kitchen cabinets, I moved to cleaning and painting duty. With five of us going at the walls with ammonia drenched sponges, the cleaning went fairly quickly. However, the walls were caked in dirt up to about my hip level. In the history of this house hundreds of children must have run up and down these stairs running muddy fingers along the walls. No one could have ever cleaned it before today.
We quickly sprang into action armed with Chlorine cleanser and a bucket of water from next door. Though we couldn't r emove all of the dirt (it was that thick), what we could not remove, we just painted over. Grimey gray walls turned into fresh egg shell canvases awaiting the next wave of dirty-fingered kids.
Today we also reaped the benefits of yesterday's media frenzy. At yesterday's lunch break, reporters came to interview riders. One photographer stood at the top of the hill to take pictures of our entry into Jim Thorpe, PA, and a news crew came to video our lodgings in Hazleton. When we woke up today, we learned we were front page news in the lead paper and the number one spot on the local evening news!
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