Thursday, July 9, 2015

If you want happiness for an hour - take a nap 

If you want happiness for a day - go fishing

If you want happiness for a month - get married

If you want happiness for a year - inherit a fortune

If you want happiness for a lifetime - help someone else.

A day without much rain! It felt like the first time in awhile that we were firing on all cylinders, so to speak. We had a very busy day with four home repair sites going on, as well as helping at the Council on Aging and St. Vincent DePaul.

The "big" site of the day was for a man in Mullens. We were trying to figure out a way for him to have a floor in his back room which sits pretty much in the dirt, right up against the mountain. Several wonderful PV minds put their heads together and came up with the idea of putting in a concrete floor after the existing floor was taken up. The challenge of this, however, was mixing and moving the concrete up a steep and long set of steps. The wonderful PV brain trust came up with the idea of mixing up the concrete and filling up buckets for transport. This was also a great way to involve a lot of people, as especially the kids. It was quite an impressive process to watch. Everyone had a job and pitched in and helped. There was also a small crew working in the house finishing up with the ceiling that we started yesterday. In all, 15 PVs worked really hard to get the job done, hence the mention of the "big" site.

We also had a crew trying to finish up two roofing sites that have been on hold for awhile because of the rains. I had to say almost since the were so close to finishing when a storm passed over and it started to rain. The crew was very disappointed not to finish. But there is always tomorrow.

Today we also started up two additional sites in Mullens. One project was building a new set of steps and platform for a woman and the other was helping a man pull up and replace his floor that had water damage. Great progress was made at both sites.

The Council on Aging and St. Vincent DePaul combo went very well as well. They had a lot of residents joining in the activities at Council on Aging and kept busy helping with distribution and clothes sorting at the St. Vincent DePaul Warehouse in Pineville.  A good day was had by all!

Dinner this evening was scrumptious. There was sweet and sour chicken, Brazilian black beans and rice, carrots,mustard greens, salad, and so much more!

Reflection was once again led my some of our younger volunteers, the leaders of the future. We were presented with the idea of service and what our inspiration to do service is. It was a great reminder of why we are all here.