To continue the weather report, today started out misty and cool, but turned into a beautiful sunny day by mid-afternoon.

Since it is the third Friday of the month, the students were able to help out with distribution day at the Itmann Food Bank. The students worked alongside the wonderful food bank volunteers packing boxes, bringing those boxes out to people’s cars, helping clients pick out clothes and housewares and most importantly listening to stories.

After the food bank was over the NIU crew headed over to the house to help us move furniture to the St. Vincent DePaul warehouse. So much was accomplished in a very short time. After a quick climb up castle rock and a stop for ice cream at Dairy Queen, they headed back to Baileysville to rest up.

As is tradition, we had the group over to the PV house for a final meal and a closing reflection.

Thank you to NIU Newman Center for sending us another wonderful group of volunteers! We all had a wonderful week… on to Kansas and the PV Hoedown!

PS: To keep things interesting this week, each blog post title incorporated the day of the week in a song title.

To continue the weather report, today started out misty and cool, but turned into a beautiful sunny day by mid-afternoon.

Since it is the third Friday of the month, the students were able to help out with distribution day at the Itmann Food Bank. The students worked alongside the wonderful food bank volunteers packing boxes, bringing those boxes out to people’s cars, helping clients pick out clothes and housewares and most importantly listening to stories.

After the food bank was over the NIU crew headed over to the house to help us move furniture to the St. Vincent DePaul warehouse. So much was accomplished in a very short time. After a quick climb up castle rock and a stop for ice cream at Dairy Queen, they headed back to Baileysville to rest up.

As is tradition, we had the group over to the PV house for a final meal and a closing reflection.

Thank you to NIU Newman Center for sending us another wonderful group of volunteers! We all had a wonderful week… on to Kansas and the PV Hoedown!

PS: To keep things interesting this week, each blog post title incorporated the day of the week in a song title.

Today, the weather forecasters got it wrong (sorry, Nick.) We were suppose to have another sunny, warm day with scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon, but instead had cool and rainy weather, with thunder and lightening.

Our site for today was a whole group affair, all the NIU students, Dan and us. We all met at the old school building in Itmann where UGWA and Groundworks West Virginia are working together to rehab the building to turn it into their offices as well as a museum and visitor center for the area. Last summer a couple of PVs who are also architects, met with UGWA to discuss what needed to be done to get the building move-in-able. Today we went to help to clean and to knock down a couple of walls to expose windows to bring light into the area. When we got there we had an initial challenge of there being no electricity to the building. The NIU students didn’t let the lack of light stop them from cleaning though. With the light from a cell phone, they swept and cleaned the dark room. Not too long later the electricity was on at the building and we were able to begin the demolition. The group worked together seamlessly with the contractor and both walls were down, nails removed from the lumber, lumber stacked and the rooms swept within a matter of hours. It was quite impressive. Today we were able to get a good start on a project that the PVs will be helping with throughout the whole summer.

Today, the weather forecasters got it wrong (sorry, Nick.) We were suppose to have another sunny, warm day with scattered thunderstorms in the afternoon, but instead had cool and rainy weather, with thunder and lightening.

Our site for today was a whole group affair, all the NIU students, Dan and us. We all met at the old school building in Itmann where UGWA and Groundworks West Virginia are working together to rehab the building to turn it into their offices as well as a museum and visitor center for the area. Last summer a couple of PVs who are also architects, met with UGWA to discuss what needed to be done to get the building move-in-able. Today we went to help to clean and to knock down a couple of walls to expose windows to bring light into the area. When we got there we had an initial challenge of there being no electricity to the building. The NIU students didn’t let the lack of light stop them from cleaning though. With the light from a cell phone, they swept and cleaned the dark room. Not too long later the electricity was on at the building and we were able to begin the demolition. The group worked together seamlessly with the contractor and both walls were down, nails removed from the lumber, lumber stacked and the rooms swept within a matter of hours. It was quite impressive. Today we were able to get a good start on a project that the PVs will be helping with throughout the whole summer.

Another beautiful day in West Virginia. Today was almost summer like with temperatures in the low 80’s. The mountains looked beautiful with the blue skies.

Today the students continued with their projects that they have been working on the first two days. A group worked hard organizing at St. Vincents DePaul and also helped with furniture distribution at the warehouse. Another group went back to help at Head Start. This week the Head Start has been short teachers, so the timing could not be any better.

The home repair group broke up into two groups. One went to finish up the projects from the two days earlier. The underpinning was finished and the two rooms painted, pink and purple. We will be returning to work with this family so we only said goodbye temporarily. The other site we had today was also a site we will be working on this summer. Today we just started off with replacing two windows and a door. We are looking forward to seeing them soon again.

After we left the site we decided to stop in and say hello at Huff Consolidated, our summer home. We met with the principal and started talking plans for the summer. It is just around the corner….

Another beautiful day in West Virginia. Today was almost summer like with temperatures in the low 80’s. The mountains looked beautiful with the blue skies.

Today the students continued with their projects that they have been working on the first two days. A group worked hard organizing at St. Vincents DePaul and also helped with furniture distribution at the warehouse. Another group went back to help at Head Start. This week the Head Start has been short teachers, so the timing could not be any better.

The home repair group broke up into two groups. One went to finish up the projects from the two days earlier. The underpinning was finished and the two rooms painted, pink and purple. We will be returning to work with this family so we only said goodbye temporarily. The other site we had today was also a site we will be working on this summer. Today we just started off with replacing two windows and a door. We are looking forward to seeing them soon again.

After we left the site we decided to stop in and say hello at Huff Consolidated, our summer home. We met with the principal and started talking plans for the summer. It is just around the corner….