WPC Blogs

On our last day we began working early and hard.  The weather is beautiful, cool (for Texas) and brilliantly sunny.  Although it was evident that we would not finish all the items that need to be done, we were happy to leave Miss Lilllian’s home in much better shape than we found it.  We were all feeling a little disappointed to leave with some jobs unfinished until Marley showed up.  He is the manager of the team that will replace us on Monday.  His team is composed of retired people who bring their RV’s down to Galveston.  They work anywhere from a week to four weeks.  It felt so good to know that another team will finish up the home soon.  As we prayed for Miss Lillian and God’s blessing to be with her and her new home, we were filled with gratitude for the opportunity to be here.  We say goodbye to Galveston tomorrow so we are signing off.

Jacquie Zoolkoski                     Jason Wroten
Chuck Ackerman                       Rick Johnson   
Dee Fairbanks                           Mary Chandler
Bruce Fairbanks                        Apryl Hurley
Harry Chandler                           Lenore Robb

Comment (0)

Thursday, October 22

Well Wednesday lived up to its name and turned out to be a challenging day.  We arrived at our new assignment, a home that was supposed to be near completion.  After many frustrating starts and stops we made progress by sorting tools, prioritizing needed work and identifying material and tool needs.  Cleaning out the garage turned out to be more excitement than expected.  We finished the day at the Olive Garden in a driving rainstorm.  We awoke this morning to sheets of rain blowing across the compound.  The sidewalk flooded quickly making us stay in the breakfast room for awhile.  We finally got the call from Galveston saying it was safe to drive over to the island. 

Today was a good day of accomplishments.  Thresholds were installed, spackling on every wall was done, baseboards were painted, drywall mudding was done in the bathroom, and appliances were installed.  This second home is on the far side of Galveston Island, which received the worst of the flooding.  Many of the houses have been bulldozed or abandoned.  Unemployment in Galveston is at 50% so we see many men sitting and waiting.

Comment (0) Read More...

Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Hello from lovely Texas City,

We put in another day of tremendous work at the Salinas home.  Today we finished up gutting the inside. We removed the remaining linoleum, pulled down the remainder of the wallboard and wallpaper, removed the bottom half of the tongue and groove boards, finished the front steps, hauled all of the trash off of the porch, and then sprayed the first of three applications of bleach solution over the lower four feet of the walls and all of the floors. The reward for all of this hard work was that Mrs. Salinas surprised us with homemade tortillas, beans and meat and fresh avocados to thank us.  What an awesome treat!  We said a sad goodbye to Jason who did a huge amount of work removing the linoleum tiles-a very hot and sticky job.  Tonight the Pennsylvania team is cooking meatloaf and mashed potatoes for us.  Rick and Jason fed us well yesterday with Swedish pancakes for breakfast and beef brisket at dinner.  We are eating well!!!

Comment (0)

Monday, October 19, 2009

Greetings from Texas City. We had an awesome day today. The team was united in patience as we had a very slow start to the morning from a prolonged orientation. But once we finally arrived at the worksite we were unstoppable. The first house that we are gutting is a two-story structure that sustained major water damage to the first floor. After removing the contents of the downstairs rooms, we tore out sheet rock up to 4 feet, scraped up linoleum tiles, removed decades old wallpaper, started building a new front stairs and tore out window frames. Our team would like to ask for your prayers for safety and health. We wear masks, eye protection, gloves and earplugs. But we are working with termite shavings, mold, dust, animal droppings and other noxious materials. Tomorrow we will return to the same home to hopefully finish up the process.

Comment (0)

Hello Send Team,

We are sitting in the Break Room waiting to start our first orientation. Everyone arrived without any problems yesterday. We met the 6 people on the team from West Newton, PA and settled into our bunks. Because there are only 7 women and 9 men, there is plenty of room to spread out in the trailers. We also met Pat and Chester who are our Presbyterian Disaster Assistance hosts. Today we woke up to beautiful clear, cool skies. We all attended church at 10:30 in their lovely sanctuary. After church we headed out to see Galveston. We had a great lunch at Gaidos, a restaurant on the Seawall. After a stroll on the beach we drove around the island to get oriented for our work tomorrow. We will start working tomorrow at 8:30 am. Everyone is ready and excited to get started. We have been told that we will be removing drywall up to four feet. Our hearts are filled with gratitude for this opportunity to serve in Galveston.

Comment (0)