CrisField, MD – Feb. 11-17, 2024

Hannah Steffen, a long-term crew leader that has been in Crisfield for 6 weeks, said farewell this week.  She is heading back home to Ohio to work the calf-birthing season on her family’s dairy farm. Although she did take time to help the cooks make homemade apple fritters before leaving!

Gerald Lee has been bringing a group of men from his church (Shore Mennonite) & local community (Shipshewana, IN) to volunteer with MDS for more than 15 years. This year, Crisfield MD had the absolute pleasure of hosting these 13 men. This bunch were such an encouragement for our long-term leaders! The common room was full of laughter all week. These men were boisterous, enthusiastic, and hit the ground with a lot of energy.  I was touched by how much they really loved and respected one another. Gerald was touched by how supportive the community is of MDS when the local car dealership looked over one of their vehicles for no charge.

On Wednesday, we had two teams of mason workers, totaling 15 men, that built 9ft-high cement-brick walls around the Hernandez house. It was a beautiful thing to watch these skilled and gifted friends come together and work so hard to complete the walls in one day so that we can lower the house back down soon. The teams of mason workers were from Lancaster and from Delaware.

Most of this group of weekly volunteers spent the first few days building various ramps, decks, stairs, and railings at the homes of 4 new clients that were signed on last week.  The other larger project was to start work on a new repair job.  The teams tore off a kitchen addition that was collapsing. They closed-up the kitchen by framing in the open wall, installing insulation, sheeting it in, and applying house wrap.  They also took up flooring from the bedroom and kitchen to find that the joists were in pretty good shape, only one beam needed to be replaced. The flooring was leveled, and subflooring plywood was installed.

The repairs / punch list items on the Morgan home continued to be addressed: minor cracks from raising & lowering the house were spackled, sanded, and painted; the front room floor was levelled; trim installed; and final cleaning was done.  The flood vents were stuck on the Byrd home so we had to chip away some mortar and apply sealant so that the vents could move both inward and outward as intended by manufacturers. At the Cropper home, we painted / sealed the cement blocks that had been installed under her raised home.

Dee Bell for the MDS Crisfield team!