We're All Neighbors

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Niagara Falls

(Heads up, this is a long one-but worth it!)


When life gets crazy, I’ve found that one way to get some peace back is to plan an impromptu trip to get away for a while. Naturally, for me that means dreaming about where I can volunteer next. This fall, I decided on a whim to travel to upstate New York, and had a chance to work alongside the Buffalo chapter of Habitat for Humanity (HFH) to cross state 15 off my list! It feels like a milestone making it this far-honestly, it’s a little surreal that a dream I started in 2015 is truly unfolding into a reality. Jumping into unknown territory was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made.

This trip was extra special, because my youngest brother was traveling to New York at the same time to

Letchworth State Park

scope out a possible move to the area, and he was able to take a week to reunite with me. We spent the beginning of our week taking in beautiful views while hiking around Niagara Falls and Letchworth State Park. We even got to view the northern lights in all their brilliance off the shores of Lake Ontario. It was special for me to have this time with him (and my dog nephew Charlie, aka Chuck) because I only get to see my family once or twice a year. It’s a downside of living 1000 miles away. I’ll hold these memories close for a long time to come.

After enjoying several days peeping the fall colors and taking in the jaw-dropping beauty of the region, I spent a solid two days building with the Buffalo chapter of Habitat. The neighborhood we were building in is in rough shape; a sharp contrast to the picturesque forest views we hiked through in days prior.

I was told that there are approximately 11,000-13,000 abandoned properties throughout the streets of

Family pic!

Buffalo. As you drive through the city, it felt like I was driving through a movie scene. Storefronts were run down, dirty, and were often chained up or had bars blocking the windows. Houses are about 100 years old, and have unfortunately become dilapidated over time. I imagined that with several universities in the area and Niagara Falls within a half hour’s drive away that tourism and student traffic would fuel the economy and add a spark to the area, but aside from very small pockets that did not translate to much of the area. My brother and I loved exploring the area and checking out hole in the wall restaurants and experimenting with coffee shops throughout our trip, and the more we ventured out the more I realized that this area desperately could use the help of organizations like HFH to revitalize the city.

Northern lights-Lake Ontario

I arrived for my first build day excited and ready to go. The volunteer coordinator had told me that I’d be putting finishing touches on a home that was close to completion, and I was excited to see a site that wasn’t in the middle of heavy construction. Most of the homes I’ve worked on have been in early or mid stages of building, and it can be hard to imagine everything put together as a true home. I was informed that this particular chapter was able to complete about 14-16 homes each year, which is fantastic. Some of the homes, like the one I was helping with, were modular homes. The property lots in the area are small and houses are built up rather than out. This chapter had found a way to order modular homes that are completed in two big pieces and then shipped out to the site to be put together. They’re currently in the process of creating their own warehouse to manufacture these homes themselves, so they can construct more homes for their own area and also bring them to other Habitat locations. I thought this was a really neat idea and I had never heard of this being done before. It seemed like a creative and useful solution for the area they build in and for the production levels they would like to hit over time.

Painting away

When I arrived at this site, I met Ken, the site supervisor, and he took me on a tour of the place. It was a quaint three bed one bath home, nestled in between a crowded row of homes in a neighborhood on the edge of Buffalo. He told me that I was jumping in on the last two or three days of building before the home would go through the final steps of inspections and be dedicated to a deserving family in about three weeks’ time.

This home would be going to a woman from Puerto Rico who had faced tremendous adversity personally, and had also been battling significant medical diagnoses for her children. Habitat staff told me that this woman had said she wanted this home to give her children a safe place to be, and to be able to show them that she was strong and capable of overcoming challenges. I thought it was such a beautiful story and legacy to want to leave for her family, and it was a bummer that I didn’t have a chance to meet her personally. However, I did get a chance to work alongside another person who was getting a different Habitat home in the area. His name was Fabrice, and he and I worked on painting various parts of the house throughout the first day I was on site.

Pulling up tarps

I asked Fabrice a little about his family and why he was pursuing a home with Habitat. This brief conversation truly stands out as one of the most raw moments I’ve experienced while volunteering across the last fifteen states. At the time, I had been tasked with painting a small railing along the staircase, and was chatting with Fabrice as I did my best to cover all the small details on the spindles without giving it the landlord special and globbing paint everywhere. As Fabrice started telling me his story, I set my brush down and turned my full attention to him as he began explaining that he had come to America six years ago to escape genocide in the Congo.

He told me how his ancestral tribe was being effectively hunted down and killed, and how as a young child men had held his head and forced him to watch as they killed his mother and chopped her lifeless body into pieces. He then pulled down the neck of his t-shirt and exposed a thick scar along the base of his neck, as he explained that members of this same group had once tried to kill him with machetes. His wife and three children are currently seeking asylum in Uganda, and I learned that at some point these people had tried to poison his spouse. Fabrice had also tried escaping to Uganda but was not accepted. After being rejected by this new country and facing continued persecution in the Congo, he made the decision to immigrate to the United States with the hope of building a safe life for his family.

Doors are next!

This man’s story was absolutely heartbreaking. I couldn’t believe my ears. I had to give a double take because this man was casually discussing some of the most heinous experiences anyone could ever walk through, yet had such a calm, quiet demeanor. For a man who had faced the worst parts of humanity, he seemed to have such peace about him and hope for the future. At one point, it was mentioned that Fabrice had said in the past that he felt very safe in this area, though it was not necessarily uncommon to hear gunshots in parts of the community. Compared to what he and his family had endured regularly overseas, that was nothing. It was so humbling to hear his story and see how he carried himself despite what he had walked through. He wasn’t a victim. He was a quiet warrior. What a privilege we have here in the United States, to only hear about those kinds of atrocities in world news or in movies about the past. A part of this experience that I have really loved is being able to meet people that come from all walks of life, none of which are just like me. It gives me such an appreciation for the human experience, and opens my eyes to life outside of my own. I think that’s something that more of us should strive to pursue; I think it would help us love others more.

Finishing touches-top floor

Well, enough of the mushy stuff for now. Let’s talk about the build! On day one I started by painting that stair railing a fresh white. For how small a project it seemed to be, it sure took a while. It was important to use small amounts of paint at a time so it didn’t glob on too thickly or start to run and cause unsightly streaks down the spindles. I promised Ken that I wouldn’t give him the landlord special, which he very much appreciated. After two coats of paint, I moved on to paint the interior sides of the two doors leading out of the home. First I took a brush to cut along the built in windows and get into the small crannies of the door’s design, and I finished each by using a paint roller to cover the rest. Once the coats of paint seemed to dry, I took the roller and went over the flat parts of the stair railing and the doors again. Ken gave me a pro tip that by rolling the paint on, it would get rid of the brushstrokes you’d otherwise see using a normal paint brush. Believe it or not, painting took the whole day. I also had a chance to talk to DJ, the volunteer coordinator who helped get me set up on the build. He is a former news reporter and asked to talk to me about my Habitat journey, and they later posted a small clip on social media. How sweet!

Cutting Siding

It was so evident talking to both Ken and DJ that they had a passion for what they did, and I always love to highlight folks like them because they truly are the backbone of this organization. Without volunteers and people willing to permanently contribute to the mission, none of these projects would get off the ground. Ken had left his personal construction business two months prior to my visit to work with Habitat full time, and DJ again had left a great career in reporting to help bring people together for this great cause. Learning to build a house is fun, but building connections with people like them are what is most special for me.

Anyways, let me stay on track. Day two began and it was just Ken and I working one-on-one together for the day. This was nice; Ken was friendly, and did a great job showing me tricks of the trade and getting me to try new things. It was helpful to have more undivided attention so I was slightly less self-conscious if I wasn’t great at something right away. Ken gave me a break from painting to “do the fun stuff”. We went upstairs and pulled up all of the tarps that had been nailed securely into the freshly carpeted floors. It felt like unwrapping a Christmas present to see all of the dust and paint stained tarps being pulled away to reveal, well, a home! It really started feeling like a house once it was all removed. After that, I used a shop vac to vacuum the baseboards throughout the upper floor, and later to vacuum the rest of the floors. My mom, who taught me all I needed to know about keeping a clean home, would have been so proud of my superior vacuuming abilities haha!

Ken!

Once that was done, he showed me how to check for gas leaks in the lines connecting the oven, washer and dryer machines, and water heater. Normally there’s a product you can buy to pour around the connections, but we used an old trick. Using a bottle of water with Dawn dish soap mixed in, and a small pinhole in the lid, Ken showed me how to use just the suds to cover the connections. If there was a gas leak, the bubbles would continue to enlarge and bubble more. If everything was secure, the bubbles from the dish soap would dissipate after a few seconds. He had me go around and check all the appliances, and thankfully they were good to go!

After that, we headed downstairs, and this is where the real fun started. He showed me that they had installed insulation around the unfinished basement walls, and said he wanted to smooth it a bit more. To do this, we had to use a tool that would literally shoot nails into the concrete. He showed me how to load a.22 shell into the gun-like tool, and insert a nail with a washer and a small spacer attached into the opening of the barrel. He then smoothed the insulation to where it needed to be, and let me press the tool tightly against the wall before pulling the trigger and firing the nail into the wall. I was a bit nervous because I was worried if I missed or if the kick-back caused the tool to move, that I’d hit his hands. But thankfully we signed a waiver…and ultimately we finished the project without a problem. We then taped up the seams of the insulation in the corners of the basement walls, swept up the dirt that had collected on the floor during construction, and headed back upstairs.

Almost a home

For the rest of the afternoon, we focused on replacing two pieces of cosmetic siding on the front of the home. The main piece we needed to replace was directly to the side of the front door. This piece had accidentally been dented when someone had put finishing nails into the middle of the piece, and Ken wanted to replace it to make sure everything looked the very best it could before home dedication day. He had me measure out the areas we needed to cut to fit it into place. I then got to use a tool that could cut the metal siding to the measurements we needed. It was fun learning how to use these new pieces of equipment. Yet again, I had to face my nerves because I knew this was the last piece of spare material we had, and I didn’t want to be the one to screw it all up. Ken was patient and we had some laughs as I fumbled a bit, but together we got everything put in place. We hit a small snag with the metal getting caught in debris in between the frame of the door, but Ken maneuvered it so we finally got everything set. Afterwards, I used caulk to fill the open seams in the siding, and ran my finger along them to make clean lines. Ken would later come by and use clear silicone to finish it out; he said once it was all dried you wouldn’t be able to see it at all.

It was bittersweet leaving the site at the end of the day. I felt so comfortable working with this team, and I could tell how passionate they were for making their community a better place. It’s easy to ride the high of that when we all come together to work towards a common goal.

What did I take away this time around? For one, I need to keep working on trusting myself and to have confidence, even in new situations. I find myself shying away from new things sometimes because I don’t want to get it wrong. But no matter how much I want to be, I’m not perfect, and no one ever expects me to be when I volunteer. As long as my heart is in it, all that’s expected is that I try my best and make an impact however I can. 

On a greater scale, it hit me during this build that geography is the only thing keeping me (or anyone else) from being someone’s neighbor. Just think, if life went one way instead of another, our circumstances could be completely different. We could be in the shoes of those overcoming adversity and hardship and getting one of these homes. Circumstances don’t change someone’s worth, and shouldn’t dictate if someone has an opportunity to be safe and secure as they try to make a better life for themselves. I love volunteering because it reminds me every day that we’re all in this together. You don’t need to be an expert or have a lot of money to be the hands and feet of Jesus. You just need you, and a willingness to do what you can to love your neighbor-whoever and wherever they are. I think if we all focus on loving others more and looking out for one another, we’d find that we’re a lot more similar than we think.

I’m so grateful to have had the chance to work with the Buffalo HFH chapter, and to meet such wonderful people along the way. I think this is a wrap for the year 2024, but I’m already dreaming of where I’ll wind up next. Come along with me next time, will ya?


Until Next Time,

Lisa