Red Lake, MN – Sept. 1-7, 2024

The end of last week, we welcomed six year-long volunteers: Jonathan & Katie Snyder from Indiana, Adam Blough from New York, Maik Hinz from Germany, Lucinda Shirk from New York and Mary Joyce Wise from New York. These young people are committed to serving an entire year with Mennonite Disaster Service. The goal is for them to gain construction experience and learn to be crew leaders while repairing and building houses in various disaster area locations.

Crew leaders, Doug and Rex divided the volunteers into two groups. Doug’s group worked on Virgil’s house, painting siding and trim and framing interior windows. One morning the entire team gathered at Virgil’s house, where Doug held a training session on building stair stringers. Doug’s group built the stairs, then trimmed and painted interior windows. When Virgil’s house was complete, Doug and Adam started right in on Daniel’s house. They removed siding and four windows, reframed window openings and installed windows and house wrap. They painted siding and installed siding and trim, finishing this house also by the end of the week.

Rex’s group ripped off old vinyl siding from Vanessa’s house, put on house wrap and painted and installed new siding, They installed a door and windows, including taping and trimming. They put up deck flashing and hauled waste siding to the dump.

Monday evening, we celebrated Rex’s birthday with cake and ice cream. Wednesday evening, Karen White, president/CEO of Northwest Minnesota Foundation and Dawn Ganje, senior vice president of Philanthropy at the Northwest Minnesota Foundation, joined us for our evening supper. Due to miscommunication, they anticipated us to relate our stories to them, while we were expecting them to speak of the work they do in the area. It turned out to be the best of both worlds as we each exchanged stories of our areas of service.

As a team, including yearlong volunteers, we took an excursion to the Mississippi Headwaters in Itasca State Park on Saturday. We crossed the Mississippi by stepping across on stones, wading through the water or walking across the log bridge. We hiked the trails and climbed the 100’ fire tower.

Josie Swartzentruber for the Red Lake Team