You Go Ahead On Wisconsin!

"Empty lot"

"Framing up"

"Plywood and TYVEC"

University of Wisconsin Helps Habitat!(Click above to see pictures of the group at work)
Last week here at Bay Area-Houston Habitat for Humanity, we had a group of 11 students from the University of Wisconsin out on the worksite helping us build our first house of 2011.

The group drove 20 hours straight through in 3 cars, leaving their school Saturday morning and arriving in Dickinson sometime early Sunday afternoon. Dickinson United Methodist Church was so kind to offer them a place to stay and hot meals for the entire week. The "badgers" (University of Wisconsin's mascot) came ready to work!

Full of energy and excited to do something good for someone else, they worked full 9 hour work days Monday-Thursday in the blustering cold (40-50 degree weather...that's "blustering" to Texas folk, people!). On the first day, they endured a two-hour long safety briefing and tour of the site, cleaned up the slab that was full of random pieces of wood, siding and other building materials and started framing the house. By the end of the second day, the whole house was framed! Wednesday and Thursday, the group "blocked" and secured the structure, attached hurricane clips and ceiling joists, and had the entire outside covered in plywood and tyvec! Even the framework for the family's shed was finished. Impressive!

A shout out to Cici's Pizza and Richard Ainsworth's Famous Chili for supplying the group with lunch for their last two work days. Thanks so much!

This group is going to be a hard act to follow, as we have more Collegiate Challengs groups signed up to help us during their school breaks, continuing this week with the University of Maryland, College Park. Our regular volunteers had a blast working with this energetic, fun, quick-learning group! Tommy G, our Construction Supervisor, was completely impressed. They worked him hard all week, but he never complained. As he would say, "You go ahead on, Wisconsin!"

You go ahead on, Wisconsin...Thanks for stopping here in Dickinson. We hope you had as amazing a time working and visiting with us as we did with you!

On another note:

Today is the 25th Anniversary of MLK Day. We hope everyone is out volunteering their time today to someone or some organization that might need it. In honor of MLK Day, we had a special day on site with our current Collegiate Challenge group. Tune in tomorrow to see what we did...

Thanks blogger fans! We appreciate your eyeballs :)