Gittin' 'Er Done

So, the cool thing about doing a two-day work trip is that you really have time to get a good amount of work done. Peter, the program coordinator at The Source, commented that many volunteers come for 3 hour chunks of time - very appreciated, but sometimes hard to get bigger projects done because of the coordination and setup and take down that are a part of the deal for this kind of work. With the luxury of two days on our hands, our group was really able to take on things like building 15 or so sound traps to help make a studio gathering place less echo-ey, or build a shed to store tools and materials for other groups coming in, or finish entire wiring or painting projects.

The, um, less cool thing about being able to get a lot done is that you WANT to get it all done before you call it a day! This means that we were still going strong at 5:30 tonight, trying to both put the wraps on the shed and the sound traps AND get everything cleaned up and in a decent place for the next group coming through and the visitors that come and go. We left victorious and tired - very ready for showers at the Y (where we could wash off dirt AND the itchy fiberglass that was a key ingredient for the sound traps), and later pizza at Dan and Holly's place.

All this work was nicely sandwiched between a visit to The Basilica of St. Mary in the morning and a candy scavenger hunt back at the church tonight. *yawn*!

Snapshots of moments of the two days can be scanned here: http://twitpic.com/photos/appletruenorth. Much better pictures will be available at some point as well, and they'll do a much better job of capturing the fun and intensity of these experiences. Stay tuned!

Walls

Well, as predicted, it was a work-filled and productive day! We drilled holes, sanded drywall, painted like crazy, stuffed envelopes, built sound traps for an echoey room's ceiling, ripped and sanded new trim, framed a new shed from scratch, and about a gajillion other things! Everyone worked really hard and we got a lot accomplished. Most of our work was focused on a house that's being renovated and built into three apartments. When finished, theses will be available for women who are coming out of prostitution to have a safe place to live. It's neat to work so hard on a project that will really make a difference for the folks who will live here.
If you're interested, there are updates with photos throughout the day in the Twitter feed on the right-hand side of this page.

We're BA-AACK!

Hello friends. Yep, it's that time of year again where a group of us trundles our way across the state and lands in downtown Minneapolis for a weekend of working, playing, reflecting, and learning. This time around there are 17 of us from Appleton, and Mike sweet-talked a group of 7 or so from Door County into joining in the fun this year. We had a nicely uneventful trip here and are now settled in and resting up for a big day tomorrow. Here goes!