Rebuilding Together - Days 6 and 7, Wrapping up the week

Courtesy of Mike Gallagher

En route to Houston

“We made the front page!” shouted John Bruhn as he burst through the kitchen door of the Southwest Louisiana Volunteer center. “We made the front page!”

The day before yesterday, a rookie reporter showed up at the Mrs. DeJean’s place sent out by his editor to find a community interest story. He spoke with everyone and put together a piece that the paper decided to run with as their lead piece, complete with a four-color photo front and center.

Boy was that a boost to team moral. Not that it was drooping in this hard-driving group, but recognition for a job well done is always appreciated.

Yesterday was all about the electrical inspector. Electrical inspectors: can’t live with ‘em, can’t shoot ‘em. We tried to organize our day around the arrival of the electrical inspector, but in the end it was no go.

We packed up the new-found glow from the newspaper article and headed off to the job site. It was great how everybody on the team prepared themselves to do whatever it took to ready themselves to complete our work, if only the inspector would come. We made sure we got Mrs. DeJean to the permit office first thing in the morning to apply for building, plumbing and electrical permits. We knew the crew would be doing finishing touches for the morning without the usual plate full of tasks to accomplish. And that, if we were lucky, we would have a frenzied afternoon of work trying to finish.

John Bruhn was so great, making sure we had lights available for evening work if needed. He is great about making sure there are no excuses for not completing our appointed rounds.

The electrical crew, now known as Southpaw Electric (both Eileen and Ben are left handed), had some needed work to accomplish before the inspector arrived: hard-wired smoke detectors in the 3 bedrooms (and the six-foot long hallway!), two outside outlets, and the installation of arc-fault breakers (a safety device that disables a circuit in the event of any intrusion into the electrical flow, e.g. a nail driven through a wire).

Those tasks were dispatched in relatively short order and we stood ready to screw the sheetrock home, close up the walls post-inspection and put a bow on the whole enterprise for Mrs. DeJean. But by about 2 PM, most of the crew left to pack up and clean up our volunteer housing center, leaving the Southpaws, John, Graylyn, Kevin, Dave, Nick & Nate in case the inspector showed.

But by 4 o’clock on a Friday afternoon, it was clear even to the huddled hopeful that no inspector would show. So we saddled up and moved out, securing the place carefully to await Mrs. DeJean’s return. She still has work to complete, but with the other disaster relief funds, she could get a contractor to finish this off in a few weeks.

While talking to the photographer, the day before, Eileen had obtained a restaurant recommendation. We were getting a little bit tired of cooking for the 25 person crew (actually, Eva, Linda Pam & Natasha did most of it – Thank you, thank you) in the institutional kitchen and wanted some local color, especially in Louisiana, so known for its good food.

Steamboat Bill’s was the recommendation that came back, and Susan Mestayer, our fearless leader, seconded the nomination. We had a great time, eating crawfish and combination seafood platters. Brian Houston entertained us with crawdad finger puppets using the discarded crawdad heads.

All in all, it was feel-good week with a ton of accomplishment, putting Mrs DeJean on a good footing to finally complete her rebuilding and get her life back on track. We will look back on the new friendships we made, the relationships forged and the skills learned from our time in Lake Charles. Unanimously, we want to encourage each and every one of you to participate in an effort like this. It is a chance to give back to your fellow man and it will change your life.

Tags: Volunteer