Conroe, TX – SYP – July 27 – Aug 2, 2025

Katie & Jonathon Snyder, year-long volunteers, continued to serve as Crew Leaders, ending this week.   Also, finishing their Long Term month were Eric Wiebe, Ed Lombardi, Lynn Miller, Thaine Dirks, and Richard and Marjorie Heatwole.   The weekly volunteers were a SYP group from Kansas, with a total of 11 youth and adults. Also, two staff from Lititz were here in Conroe.  It was a wonderful, energetic and close-knit group.

One weeks-long job was completed this week, Sadly the team said goodbye to the friendly donkeys that met them every day on the way to working on the house.  There was quite a bit of flood damage with the teams taking out the bad walls and installing new sheetrock and painting.  There were some creative solutions to finish the walls in the tight laundry room.

The Springfield house has had more and more damaged walls torn down and new drywall installed, painted, with trim and lights installed.   More rooms are in need of repair, including the bathroom which is on the plan for next week.

Matching replacement sheetrock to the good sheetrock above the 4’ flood line has been the ongoing work at the Eli Ali house.   Also uneven wall work above the flood line needed to be smoothed out and new walls were primed.   Termites were discovered above the fireplace in this house, resulting in some treatment and lumber replacement before drywall was installed.

The main room floor was completed in the La Faitey house.   In this house, furniture needs to be moved from room to room to allow access and workspace.  Again, mold was found, requiring the room to be dehumidified to allow the flooring to dry.   Some painting was completed this week.

Next week the Eli Ali team will start work in the kitchen.  The Springfield crew will continue also.   MDS and Hope leadership is evaluating jobs so that we don’t overpromise or run out of meaningful work before the season ends August 22nd.  Some new jobs may be started next week that can be finished quickly.

The highlights or rather lowlights of the week were the termites.  Taking out flood-damaged walls has often revealed termite colonies.   We celebrated a true highlight, with a cheer being raised when Katie announced that the Timmins job was completed.

Next week, we have 7 new Long-term Volunteers with 4 people having overlapped with our current crew.

On behalf of the Conroe, TX team, Thaine Dirks