Charity work

Over the weekend, I did a little bit of charity work.

The recipient of this work is a single mother, who hasn't said much about her ex-husband. She's a good friend of one religious ministry that I'm involved in.

And her house looks like a dump. (Likely because of the family lack of resources when her ex wasn't an ex...and maybe due to the path of decisions he made when attempting to remodel the house.)

Now, the exterior of the house looks somewhat better. And my upper arms are sore. Because I spent several hours climbing ladders, holding up vinyl siding, and hammering it in.

Progress was slow; we had to move our ladders/scaffolding for nearly every piece of siding. We also had a slim pool of workers able to climb the ladder and use a hammer.

The family still needs lots of help. One of the other members of the volunteer-charity team spent a little bit of money helping the family purchase a set of plastic drawers that could fill in for dressers for the kids.

It's kind of sad: I suspect that the family could have spent a little more money on their house upgrades if they hadn't splurged on the flat-screen.

However, flat-screens are cheap (relative to home construction). And the extended family I met appear to be the kind of people who would rather do home construction themselves than pay out for it. Which in this case resulted in a house that is 90% "work in progress". Apparently, funds (or time) were insufficient to the needs of the project.

I'm glad I was able to help. And I have lots of pity for the poor family.