B uild Day Birmingham

So we all felt like we had a hang over as we made it to the build site, and that hang over feeling was not from drinking! Simply a lack of sleep that your body needs to keep itself but sure enough the Build Site Coordinator took a little time to organize all his materials and assign us tasks. So we enjoyed the extra half an hour that some of us had to work with.

The majority of the house had been done so we were working on some details inside it and siding along the roof. I took up the task of painting all of the trimming for the interior doors with a group of 5 as we rocked through our first coats in the morning. I had to take off after lunch in order to take some people to give some tender love and care to our beautiful bicycles. Before I left though, the Build Site Coordinator told us his story of how he found his job as Habitat for Humanity took a chance on him. He was an ex-convict who found the organization as he was rehabbing through a drug addiction that came as the result of the loss of his wife and son. It was great to have him share his story as we grew a greater connection with people along our route.

Bob’s Bikes sells Giant Bikes (Our Sponsor) and therefore knew that we would be in the area, and gave us a great discount. They gave us great discounts on the labor of fixing our bikes and then a nice little discount on any merchandise or parts. So they fixed my baby up and I was very gracious for their help!

That took up the rest of the day so I returned to the Build simply to help shuttle people back to the church. I went for a great walk through the area and found myself as the minority in the local neighborhood. Some people gave us strange eyes wondering why an outsider was leisurely walking through their neck of the woods. It was a great learning experience and we found an old abandoned building that part of the old campus of Miles College. We are not sure what the status of the college is, but we found a destructed building that was fun to walk around. We were then told by the police to stay out of the streets for the rest of the night assuming that it was a danger zone.

So Birmingham worked out well, the only problem was our location not being great for checking out the main tourist attractions. I never really got to see anything downtown just due to our busy schedule but there is always next time. I still had a great time here working with all the many people we encountered.