Venice, FL – SYP – July 6-12, 2025

This week’s Venice leadership team included LeRoy Janzen, (NE), who arrived the middle of last week to take the PD hand-off from Mitch Kingsley; head cook Val Kipfer assisted by her husband Lynn (IN); Stan Kauffman, OM (MI) assisted by Rita Peachey (KS).  Crew leaders were Lowell Peachey (KS), Maik Hinz (Germany), and Bill Wiebe, one of our volunteer group from Ontario, Canada.  Also joining Wednesday as Construction Supervisor was Robert Nafziger (PA), who plans to help on the Venice project through next week.

Our weekly volunteer group was from Ontario, Canada, with one person from Alberta for good measure – eight men and eight women.  This group threw their efforts into four different project houses. At Ana’s, volunteers finished hanging drywall, most of the mudding, framed out a furnace room door, and worked on attic access and window casing.  At Deborah’s home, volunteers removed a lot of debris from the back yard and fixed a leaking toilet supply fitting.  Volunteers finished taping and mudding drywall in George’s house, and he, as an experienced drywall finisher, then chose to tackle that part of the job himself.  On Wednesday, volunteers started at Amber’s home removing baseboard, mudding drywall and painting.  At Mary’s home, volunteers did more drywall work, new composite flooring, bath tile, trim work and painting to finish off her project.

Mary joined us for our Wednesday evening meal and told us about her experience staying in her home through the hurricane with her rescue dogs as water from the drainage channel in her backyard rose almost to the top of her mattress.  In the past couple of weeks, one of her dogs died and another became ill enough for a veterinarian visit.  She has no nearby family, and her pets are a big part of her life, so volunteers offered encouragement through these difficulties, with good conversations and prayer with her.

This Sunday evening, we will be joined by a group of thirteen volunteers from Pennsylvania to continue several ongoing projects and consider additional work.  At the end of the week the Venice leadership team will see a major transition, with all but two year-long volunteers completing their terms.  A new project director, office manager and cook team are scheduled to arrive from Thursday to Saturday to finish the remaining two weeks of the project.  The whole team has been enjoying working with the volunteer groups who have participated in the Venice project for these first three weeks.  We hope we have blessed them as much as they have blessed us and the homeowners they have served.