Over the 4th of July weekend, just down the street from the two new Habitat homes under construction in Piru, Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County served an additional family through A Brush With Kindness (ABWK), a component of our new Preserve a Home program. The exterior of this home received some TLC thanks to volunteers from the Christian Church and Intuit of Thousand Oaks.
To start things off, Marty Milligan, Pastor, and volunteers from the Christian Church braved 100°+ weather as they removed weeds, dug a trench for a French drain, installed it, placed jute along the back slope of the backyard and spread fresh mulch throughout most of the surface area. To finish the day, the home was power-washed and prepped for paint.
The next day, the hot weather returned as did the volunteers from the Christian Church. While the final part of the landscape work was being finished, the exterior of the home was painted thanks to Mr. Lance Kistler along with additional assistance from the volunteers. At lunch time, Demetrio Silva and Noe Saravia, Habitat for Humanity Homeowners, provided a “carne asada” lunch for the ABWK volunteers as well as for the volunteers working on the new homes.
Bringing things to a close, Mr. Don Majors, a regular Wednesday Crew volunteer, restored a fallen side gate and installed an irrigation drip line in the backyard. Volunteers from Intuit of Thousand Oaks brought the home preservation project to full completion by placing the finishing touches and performing final clean up.
A great deal of work was completed by the Christian Church and Intuit, and at the end of the day, volunteers were left with a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction for the service performed for the homeowner.
“A Brush with Kindness is part of our larger neighborhood revitalization initiative and Preserve a Home program. This initiative gives us a great opportunity to help more families as well as have an impact on the entire neighborhood,” said Stacy Swanson, Executive Director. ”Helping people repair and maintain their homes fits in seamlessly with our core mission of making decent, affordable housing available to families in need.”
Do you have a home or know of one that needs some work? Pre-applications for ABWK are available here: https://habitatventura.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/ABWK-Homeowner-Pre-application1.pdf. Would you like to volunteer on ABWK home? We welcome volunteers as young as 14 years of age on our ABWK sites. Each individual can have a large impact on a project. You can sign up and become a volunteer here: https://habitatventura.org/volunteer/volunteer-sign-up.
