Habitat for Humanity

On Thursday September 15, 2011 Coakley and Williams had the opportunity to spend a day volunteering with Habitat for Humanity of Washington, DC.  We took 16 volunteers total, which included corporate office employees as well as employees from our Hilton Springfield hotel.

Our wonderful volunteers (from left to right):  Top row - Steve Hahn, Lydia Allison, Marty Flaherty, Mark Williams, Vicki Caspar, Janine Davy, Richy Davy, David Melugin
Bottom row - Dawn Watkins-Welcome, Melissa Detwiler, Kirsten Reed, Deirdre Holliday, Suzanne Shogren, Christin Morgan, and Lori Loriso  (Shane Flowers not pictured)

This was such a truly wonderful experience!

We began our day by meeting at the volunteer build site at 8am.  We all signed in and stuck on our duct-tape name tags and then headed over for a brief orientation.  PK was our volunteer coordinator for the day and she was wonderful!  You would have never known that she started 1 week prior.  She was one of several AmeriCorps staff members that were working for Habitat.  She assigned us all specific jobs and then sent us over to our group leaders. 

Once we got on the actual site, we got straight to work.  Some of us were finishing the cement wall on the back of the house, some were building walls and others were literally moving gravel.  There were tons of jobs throughout the day as one job would morph into another, but regardless of a group here and a group there, I think we truly felt as if we were all working together in some sense.  We would help out with other groups where needed and in the end, we were all working toward the same cause.

The morning flew by!  We took lunch, and then got straight back to work.  We worked until 3pm and then began our clean up.  Once the clean up was complete we turned back to take a look at our work for the day.  Wow!  Spectacular.  When we arrived at the build site, we were told we were building a 2 family duplex.  We looked at it and the first floor had been framed with the floor of the 2nd floor nailed into place.  At the end of the day, you could literally see the difference we had made.  No longer could you easily see the building behind it b/c there was a huge wall of ICP and the house was becoming more of a house rather than just some wood beams linked together.  What a spectacular feeling!!

There was a great sense of accomplishment at the end of the day, and I hope that goes for everyone involved. 

Another great part of our day was that we were expecting rain, and didn't get a drop...until we got in our cars at the end of the day.  Talk about divine intervention!!  :)

I can't wait to have the opportunity of joining forces with Habitat again soon and I hope that even more of our employees have the chance of joining in on all the fun!

Take a look at some of our job tasks throughout the day:

Orientation

Working hard doesn't mean killing your knees, right Dawn?  :)

Melissa hanging off the side of the house.  "Safety 3rd" was sort of our motto for the day.

Watch out!  Dee's got a hammer!

I guess Mark thought it was an appropriate time for some pull ups.  Get back to work, sir!

Janine was a true professional with those power tools.  I think she's done this before.

Lori and Marty = teamwork! Marty knew more about this than the group leaders. He was running the show!

Dawn modeling with her tool of choice for the day.

Vicki with a power saw.  You'll notice that no one is even close to nearby.  Speaks volumes!  haha! 

Another group photo!!

Steve was sneaky.  He would not look at the camera all day.

Christin cheesing for the camera instead of doing work.  She's probably missing valuable instructions right now.

Richy enjoying his time sorting the wood by size.

Janine and Christin taking a quick photo break from overlapping rebar

I wish we had a "before" photo...b/c this is our "after".

Encloures that were added during our build day.

The inside of 1 half of the duplex

Lori and Saundra (one of our team leaders) cleaning up for the day

David waving and Mark looking like he's having trouble with some heavy equipment.  :)

Christin, Janine, and Richy modeling their work attire

Dawn wanted to model as well.

Since Steve was sneaking away from the camera all day, we were sneaky ourselves getting a photo of him during the group shot.

Honor Flight Organization

It was recently brought to my attention that our very own Melissa Geter has been volunteering her time every month to the Honor Flight WWII Veteran's Organization.

Below, Melissa explains what she does each month in her own words.  Please take a look.

"I volunteer every other month for the Honor Flight WWII Veterans.  They fly from Chicago to Dulles and I am a guardian that is assigned a Veteran and from the time they land at Dulles until they depart that evening at Dulles.  We start the day by welcoming all the WWII Veterans and then take them to our designated Bus and we head to Iwo Jima, and on the Bus we have a box lunch then to WWII Memorial where we have a Ceremony to honor each WWII Veteran and then they present colors and we all say the Pledge of Allegiance, then off to the Korean, Lincoln and the Vietnam Wall for a few hours and then the last stop is the Udvar-Hazy WWII Air and Space Museum.  Then we take them back to the gate and they are girl scouts and boy scouts thanking them for their service and then a USO Girls singing for them and dinner and we hang out until they bored their flight back home.  We exchange addresses and send them any pictures we took for the day." 

What a lovely thing to do with your time, Melissa! 

Below are a few pictures that she has provided for us from a recent volunteer day.

Miriam's September

As you should all know by now, Coakley and Williams has a monthly volunteer opportunity set up with Miriam's Kitchen in DC to serve breakfast to Miriam's homeless "guests". 

The most recent volunteer shift was last Thursday, September 8th at 6am on the dot.  Our volunteers for this month were Fatiha, Larry, and Anna from the Days Inn Connecticut Ave in DC.  Below is a wonderful image of what's it's like to be a first time volunteer at Miriam's from Larry:

"Christin, being I’m the “newbie”, I thought I would write about the awesome experience at Miriam’s Kitchen this past Thursday 9/8/2011. First, thank you for the opportunity to serve others and serving God.  For me at 5:00 a.m. on that rainy Thursday morning and not knowing where I was going I was feeling a bit anxious. I was tired, I had just finished a two day trade show for the Days Inn Alliance at the SGTP show in Crystal City VA, but felt compelled to try this new experience. I have worked at the DC Central Kitchen, as a prep person, have made egg salad sandwiches for Martha’s Table but in both of these experiences, I had never had contact with the guest.  

I finally found the church where the kitchen is located, I parked on the street not knowing that the church provided parking. As I was walking down New Hampshire Avenue in the darkness of 5:40 a.m., I still wasn’t sure where I was headed, but for some reason, I happened on the church rather quickly.  Now upon my arrival there was a gathering of what looked to be guests who were waiting for the kitchen to open.  I was certainly out of my comfort zone. Not knowing even for sure if this is my destination, why there was the gathering.  I approached one of the folks there with the crowd, in other situations I wasn’t comfortable, I didn’t feel threatened nor anxious, and oddly there was no rain falling at this time. You  remember how rainy Thursday was, 13-15 inches of rain. I asked if this is Miriam’s Kitchen and the gentleman asked if I were a volunteer, I stated yes. I said I wasn’t sure of the location and  now how to get in, in almost a chorus the gathering said to enter into the garage, the man who I was speaking to pointed to the garage door and said walk over there, he walked with me and when I arrived at the door he pointed out and pressed the garage door button that opened the garage door. Talk of your acts of kindness!

Once inside, I was shown the sign in sheet, apparel, and “wash your hands”. The staff that I worked with were very organized and my colleagues went right to duties as if these  were their  regularly scheduled tasks. I wasn’t sure who the staff and who the volunteers were, seemingly some a little grumpy. However, I introduced myself, cooked bacon, set tables, poured cereal, and had the glorious opportunity to serve the guests, 99 % with open hearts, smiles, and the grace to appreciate what someone is doing for them.

I will look forward to my next gathering at Miriam’s Kitchen and it certainly continues to cement the belief that by serving others you are serving God!"

Beautifully illustrated!  This is such a great testimony to anyone interested in serving at Miriam's.  As I shared with Larry, my first volunteer experience was similar.  The guests were so helpful as I was confused in the darkness of early morning.  What a fantastic feeling to have.  These people are truly thankful for the care given to them by Miriam's and you can see it in their act of kindness and also in their smiles, which they greet you with bright and early at 6am.

Thank you to Larry for providing his Miriam's testimony.  We hope that more of our team members have the opportunity to experience this as well. 

Joplin Tornado Disaster Relief

In late May of this year, a tornado struck Joplin, MO.  It was the deadliest tornado to hit the US since 1947 and the rebuild is likely to cost $3 billion.  The devastation in Joplin was rampant and was a travesty for not only the state of MO, but for our country as a whole.

After these events took place, C&W began a donation drive requesting in-kind donations from our properties to be delivered to Joplin in an effort to help in any way we can.  Over the course of 2 months, we accumulated many boxes from C&W properties all over the country and had them shipped out to Branson, MO where we have 3 properties. 

On August 24th, I loaded these boxes and drove them out to Joplin so that I could see first hand what we were donating toward.  When I first got off of the interstate in Joplin, I looked around and did not see any devastation.  I began to wonder secretly if it was possible that the town had already rebuilt.  I thought after seeing the pictures after the tornado, that it would have been impossible, but I couldn't fine any damage on the building around me.  As I drove closer to the city center, I noticed a few signs that had been twisted and damaged and thought maybe I was getting closer to where the tornado hit.  But nothing, even those thoughts prepared me for the damage that I happened upon just a few short blocks later.  The landscape literally went from brick buildings with no damage to complete and utter destruction.  I crossed one street where things were still standing to a mile long strip of pure debris.  The destruction looked about a mile long and 2-3 miles deep from where I was driving.  I knew then that my description of the devastation would not be enough to explain how bad it was so I pulled over to a side street and tried to take pictures.  The pictures sill will not show how awful the scene was, but it will at least provide some type of visual that my memories and words cannot.

I continued driving to get our boxes to a donation center.  When I arrived at the Salvation Army in downtown, it was very busy.  There were workers unloading entire moving vans of donations and relief items.  Individuals were pulling up in their SUVs also dropping off items to help.  In all, there were probably a dozen workers just unloading trucks and sorting the items as needed.  It was wonderful to see that people are still actively responding to this effort.  But after seeing what exactly they were working to replace and rebuild, I realized that more items and more volunteers are still needed greatly. 

I want to take a moment and truly thank all of those individuals and C&W properties that donated items.  I hope you know how beneficial those items will be to families that are still without homes and in need of shelter and basic essentials.  Please know that C&W cannot continue these efforts without your support and we want to thank you for continually sacrificing of yourselves to help those in need. 

In order to help you understand a little better what your items and donations will be used for, I have posted some pictures below.  Thank you again to everyone for all of your selfless actions and donations.  You are all truly appreciated.

The following pictures are what used to be a residential areas with hundreds of homes.  Now, there is only the base of a house left, and in many cases, just rubble.

 

Inside what is left of the foundation of this home is all of the household items that were blown around pushed all into one room.  It is now just a jumbled mess of unusable items that used to be someone's home.

The power lines all had to be replaced as they were ripped apart and shredded into splinters by the tornado.

As you can see here, there is still a great deal of debris and ruble from the homes and buildings that they have been unable to clean up.

This is one of the few homes that is in the process of being rebuilt.  There were a few here and there, but out of the hundreds of homes that were lost, this is a rare sight.

These were the concrete steps to someone's house that no longer exists.

This house was just one block from all of the destruction in the previous pictures.  It is still standing, with significant damage; but it shows how unpredictable a tornado can be.  I took every house to the right of this block without mercy.

In the distance there you can see a crew of men working construction on a home.  This was being overseen by the National Guard.  But again, the rebuilding that this town is in need of cannot be completed over night.  This will take quite a while.

This is a close up of the debris on the ground.  Nowhere in the destruction zone is there a spot of ground that isn't completely covered in this type of debris.  The dirt is littered with pieces of homes and buildings.  It is truly a tragic sight.

I hope that these images have helped you understand how devastating this event was for the town of Joplin, MO.  It is truly unfortunate that events like this take place, but despite not knowing any of those that lost homes in Joplin, I know that they will appreciate all of the items that were given to them by those that donated at C&W.  Every little bit counts and sometimes that's all that we can do.

August Miriam's Kitchen

This morning, Thursday August 11th, 3 C&W team members visited Miriam's for our 2nd Thursday volunteer date.  The participants this month were Miguel Gonzalez, Ana Lopez, and Christin Morgan.

Just like every other time the C&W family has visited Miriam's we had tons of fun!  We were able to make eggs, pancakes, biscuits...the works!  And then we got to serve the line again. 

Below is a testimonial from Miguel of his time spent at Miriam's:

“Since this is my third visit to Miriam’s Kitchen, I already know what to expect during and what needs to be done. Regardless, from the night before ( the need to set up the alarm clock for a 4:30 AM call) to the moment we leave Miriam’s parking lot after we complete our tasks is pure joy. Seeing volunteers form different walks of life that never meet each other and never worked in an industrial kitchen before and being able to prepare a full breakfast for 200 people in just under one hour is admirable. Then you serve the meals and at this moment is when you really appreciate how blessed you are and how much need for help some people have. I feel that every time I visit Miriam’s Kitchen I recharge my energy and reset my priorities. A very humble experience every time!”

Wonderfully written!

And here are a few pictures from our morning in the kitchen...

Until next time...  :)

Healthy Cereal

To continue our partnership with Miriam's Kitchen, we recieved a request to donate healthy cereal as it is used daily as a part of the breakfast offered to guests.  Typically at Miriam's once the main dish (pancakes, crepes, etc) are gone, the guests are offered a healthy cereal option instead.  They go through over 100 boxes per week and at the time, they were down to less than a week's worth.

The C&W office rallied and collected many boxes of cereal that we dropped off at Miriam's.  As I was dropping the cereal, it was a spectacular site because I had the opportunity to see how much cereal was donated by other volunteers.  They had by this time, aquired 2 walls worth of cereal.  It was an amazing site to see.  They say a picture (or a mental image in this case) is worth a thousand words, and it truly was because I could then envision all of the other individual volunteers and companies like C&W that cared enough about the guests at Miriam's and cause they support to collect cereal to donate.  It was heart warming in every way possible.

After I dropped off the cereal, a couple of weeks later, I received this very kind hand written note in the mail as a thank you for our collective effort.  I shared this letter with our office, and now I would like to share it with everyone else as well.

"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.  By feeding and providing hospitality for the guests of Miriam's Kichen, we are not only making a world of difference to those guests, we are also helping to improve the quality of life for those in our society who need it the most, thereby helping to strenghten our society as a whole." -Miriam's Kitchen Volunteer

"Everyone at Coakley and Williams,
We are extremely grateful for all the boxes of cereal you collected and donated to us at Miriam's Kitchen.  We are so happy to count you all on our team of volunteers and are so thankful for your kindness and generosity.  Volunteers like you all, who go the extra mile, are a temendous force for good and an inspiration to everyone.  Thank you for everything you do to make the lives of our guests better.
With gratitude,
The Miriam's Kitchen Team"

I think collectively, we would all like to say a huge THANK YOU to the Miriam's Kitchen Team.  It is more than our pleasure to volunteer and collect donations for those in need. 
Also, thank you to everyone that brought in these donation items for Miriam's.  We obviously could not give of ourselves to the community without those of you that actively partcipate.

July Miriam's Kitchen

First, I want to apologize to everyone for my absense recently.  But here I am to get us caught up on C&W Philanthropy!

In late June, Coakley and Williams strengthened our partnership with Miriam's Kitchen by guaranteeing one volunteer shift per month.  We signed up for 3-4 volunteers for 1 breakfast shift on the 2nd Thursday of every month.  So far this has been going wonderfully!

July was our first monthly volunteer date and we immediately had a group of employees sign up from the Hilton Springfield.  We sent David Melugin, Kirstenn Reed, Joe Pancione, and Trey Talbot.  Based on the information I got out of the group they had a great time serving the Miriam's guests.

Please see David's beautiful description of his time spent at Miriam's:

"As always, I come away from Miriam’s with a renewed hope for mankind and myself. We are all here for each other and everyone you meet has been placed in your path for a reason. During my most recent visit, I was the cereal milk, salad & smoothie guy and a member of the busser crew. That was my contribution to the morning but the return on my efforts was tenfold. I was blessed by meeting a gentleman [unfortunately we are unable to list names of Miriam's guests]. We had a wonderful conversation about his life and how his love of knowledge keeps him motivated to see the sun rise. He spends many days reading and is fascinated by the Library of Congress. Although our encounter was brief in the scheme of things, [his] firm handshake and warm stare told me that our goodbye was only temporary. I look forward to seeing [him] again to continue my lesson from him in what makes a man, a man. Thank you [Miriam's guest], I am a better person for knowing you. I thank God that he put you in my path.

David"

Inspirational!  Thank you for such an amazing testimony David.  We all hope to have such an eye-opening experience.