Red Lake, MN – June 11-17, 2023

A group of six friends, Steve and Pat Hochstetler and Sam Bertron from Texas, Todd Fields and Stan Martin from North Carolina and Dennis Ries from South Dakota arrived at various times on Sunday for a week of repairing houses. The nine long-termers from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nebraska, Kansas, Oregon and Virginia were glad for this hard-working group.

This week the volunteers worked on siding, caulking and paint touch-up at Victoria’s house #3. This house is nearing completion and should be finished next week. They made good progress at Delwyn’s house #4. They installed flashing around the sill plates, cut starter boards, painted siding and soffits and installed new siding. They replaced rotted facia, set up the back steps, did some caulking, trim work and touchup painting. One volunteer expressed appreciation for the opportunity to hone his technical skills in cutting around windows.

Project director, LeRoy Janzen, signed two new job cards this week. The work crew got a good start on Polly’s house #5. They removed old siding, patched holes with plywood and wrapped the house with house wrap.

One day some of the volunteers had to work later than usual and decided to go on strike. Since, as volunteers, they could not demand higher wages, they decided instead to demand catered lunches as leverage! Imagine their surprise when, the next day, the cooks arrived with a catered snack of Klondike bars and candy!

Bob Nadeau from the tribal council was our dinner guest this week. He shared his experience of being born and raised in the Ojibway culture on the Red Lake reservation. Another evening our entire group of volunteers gathered around the table and participated in a hymn sing!

We expected Don Lichti, our next project director from Tuscon, Arizona to arrive Wednesday night. Instead, after a plane cancellation, an overnight stay at a hotel in the Minneapolis area and lost luggage, he finally arrived Thursday afternoon with Glenn Geissinger, projector coordinator, as his rescuer. LeRoy Janzen finished his term of amazing service as project director on Friday and passed the baton to Don in a smooth handoff.

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