Red Lake, MN – August 11-17, 2024

Our weekly volunteers who came from southern Indiana, were welcomed by the same long-term volunteers as were here last week.   Their arrival time was shortly before breakfast on Monday morning, partly due to some mechanical problems with their van.   However, this delay did not take away from the number of repairs completed.  The total number of volunteers this week came to 21.

Monday morning, the volunteers serving at Clark’s house, dove right in, building a new back porch.  By Friday, the exterior and interior window trim and front porch were painted as well as the final cleanup of the site.  At Graves’ house, new painted siding and trim were installed as well as the interior trim installed around the windows. At Lyons house the old siding was removed, house wrap installed, the painted siding installed and caulked as well as the second coat of paint applied.  The old siding was removed from Thomas’ house, house wrap installed, two new windows installed, and the painted siding installed.

Highlights of the week included seeing lots of bears, not only at the transfer station, but also lumbering about, across the street from our camp and behind our building, by our dumpster.  Wednesday evening Kelly Iceman, spiritual cultural leader from Red Lake, joined us for dinner and shared about the nation.  Dorothy purchased walleye from the Red Lake Nation Fishery and prepared a lovely walleye dinner for us.  Thursday it rained most of the day, so volunteers spent the day playing table games as well as painting the new doors in the ladies restroom.

Next week we plan to complete repairs at Thomas and Lyons’ house and begin repairs at Juarez and Strong’s house.

Even though we lost a day this week due to rain, wonderful progress was made on the home repairs, great fellowship enjoyed around the table with singing and good humor, including the skit “Captain, Captain, Captain”.

Rachel Horst reporting for the Red Lake team:  Dorothy Miller, Janice Sackenheim, Jerry Engel, Matt Kreeb, David King and Don Horst