Crisfield, MD – Feb. 19-25, 2023

A group of (12) men from Michigan and (3) women from Ontario, Canada made up our volunteer crew this week.

As a nice surprise, the timeline for insulation and then inspection at the Sterling house went quicker than hoped so it allowed us to start drywalling sooner than expected.  This was a welcome change from what has come to feel like normal delays and waits for each step of the process in building!

The drywall scene at Ronnie Sterling’s house was described as a “Bee Hive” and there was photo proof with a photo of many-colored extension cords in a tangled mess as volunteers were very busy with all stages of measuring, cutting and hanging of the drywall.  They made short work of hanging the drywall for the house in (2) ½ days and then got busy taping and mudding. The damp weather didn’t cooperate so we needed to make some trips in the evening to the site to turn on the propane heater for a ½ hour to aid in the drying process. They ended the week with 2 coats of mud on and while it was hard for one volunteer to leave without the whole job finished, it was definitely more than we expected to finish, and ready for our crew next week to complete.

Mr Carman’s kitchen looks transformed now that the appliances are installed and the countertops are in place!  2 members of Brethren Disaster Mission came midweek to install the countertops.  In the process of connecting the drain, a broken pipe was discovered under the house and everyone was thankful for the young men willing to crawl into the tight crawl space!

Susan’s house was given many more hours of cleaning and sorting for which she was so grateful.  Susan joined us for dinner on Wednesday night to share her story and a high light of the week was when she returned Friday evening after we completed the work in her house, and we presented a comforter to her while Rebecca (a Canadian volunteer) spoke words of blessing over her.

A new repair opportunity had some volunteers up on Denise Farrell’s roof taking down a chimney and repairing the roof where the chimney had fallen and damaged the roof. They ended up taking the rest of the chimney down and now it is ready for drywalling next week.

(2) sections of sidewalk at the Bryd house needed to be taken out and redone.  We were grateful for a connection with a local builder who loaned us a concrete saw so we didn’t need to rent one in Salisbury. It did not take long to break up and remove the concrete and mixing the concrete was a job that had the boys and the girls vying for the opportunity to do the mixing! One man was left to finish the job and watch over it for a while as it set and I think he got some quizzical looks when he decided to walk home 1 mile pushing the wheelbarrow instead of waiting for his ride, who was tied up at the drywallers who didn’t want to quit.

At Mr Bennett’s house site they poured the footers and we were hoping to start the foundation but rain pushed things off till next week.

It was a beautiful February week but only (2) young men thought it was warm enough to jump into the Bay and if you asked them now, they would probably tell you that it really wasn’t warm enough to  do that!

Starla Landis