The skill range of volunteers assisting with flood recovery is quite broad, ranging from skilled contractors to, well, to people like me who put up a piece of sheet rock for the first time while rebuilding a once flooded basement.
Our team of volunteers from Vermont was matched with a full time volunteer through Americorps Vista Corridor Flood Recovery (www.vistacorridorrecovery.org) . This Americorps group has been transformed from community corrections outreach, so the Americorps volunteers drive around in corrections vehicles to the work sites and are outfitted with standard issue corrections jump suits. The jump suits all have names sewn on the pocket—the name of the wearer might only coincidentally match the name sewn on the jump suit. Consequently we were calling Jimmy by his nametag—Danny— the day he came by our work site. After 10 months few volunteers were still choosing to wear standard issue jumpsuits in favor of their own jeans and Ts.
Our team leader, Phil, was a recent college graduate from Philadelphia who had started volunteering last July to assist with the recovery efforts. He stopped wearing jumpsuits last summer. As an Americorps volunteer he is given a below poverty level stipend and minimal housing which typically results in living in conditions similar to those in poverty. Phil takes his dinner meal at a local church feeding the homeless along with other Americorps volunteers, has no housing expenses and very low entertainment expenses as he has little time and the evening softball league requires few expenses beyond refreshments. Consequently, Phil commented that as he is no longer managing the expenses of a college student, he is actually saving more money now than he had previously.
Phil was an outstanding team leader—an adjective he likely would not have applied to his inexperienced crew the day he met us.
When we asked him how he was assigned to be our team leader he responded, “I was late for the meeting.”
Ouch. He later denied that he followed that statement with “I won’t do that again.”
However, in our zeal to finish our project on Friday afternoon, he again missed the weekly team assignment meeting, so likely ended up with an equally inexperience group of volunteers the following week.
Like all contractors I met, Phil did not shrink from finding fault with the previous workers for any problems we encountered. The previous group had erroneously put the sheet rock on the walls before the ceiling, left gaps that were hard to fill with mud, put up a few pieces of sheetrock wampyjod ( a new term for me, which I question is widely used by experienced contractors) and left countless screws sticking out too far. I am certain the group following us would find plenty of complaints in our ceiling tiles and mudding efforts. Although, the final two sheetrock pieces we affixed to the bathroom ceiling did fit beautifully around the lighting fixture and wall jags.
We met other Americorps volunteers—those coordinating training in the warehouse, communicating with the short term volunteers, and other team leaders. Steve was one of those team leaders. Steve had been a physical therapist until he was diagnosed with ALS shortly before the flood. He was let go from his job and rather then retreating into darkness, Steve began working every day on the flood recovery efforts. He has worked every day since the flood gutting destroyed homes by hauling load after load of rotting, saturated, putrid possessions, furniture, and building materials out of buildings that need to be reduced to the bare studs. All of this I learned from him in one short conversation after he asked if I knew the score of the previous night’s Celtic’s game. The untold stories are countless, waiting like bud ready to blossom with a little rain and sunlight.
Likewise the women I worked with are dedicated volunteers, women in their 40s, 50s and 60s, giving their own time to rebuild a stranger’s home. In the camaraderie of using a sheetrock lift to puzzle in a piece of sheetrock, or figuring out the most effective (and ineffective in the process) way of cutting out a hole for a can light in the ceiling, we quickly moved from conversations of daily fluff to the meaning of life. Once we were in the seductive rhythm of screwing in an 8 foot ceiling sheet or mudding corner beading, we could contemplate the lives and loss of lives that have touched us. The time we spent working together was a gift to each of us equally as meaningful as the physical results of our efforts.
No comments :
Post a Comment