I didn’t start the day planning to swing a hammer.
I planned to cover the beginning of the Pope Leo Village build being done by Habitat for Humanity Chicago. Talk to a few people, ask a few questions, take a few notes, come back and write a story. (Look for the story in the Oct. 26 issue of Chicago Catholic.)
But when I got there, the sun was shining and the people were just as warm and friendly. The staff and volunteers were happy to be outside, happy to be doing something to help someone, happy, in many cases, to be learning something new.
So I audibled and said, “If you could use an extra set of hands, I can carry stuff and swing a hammer.”
Because while I’m no carpenter, or even a real handy person, I am the designated person in the household to put together furniture, install shelves and blinds and do other small jobs. And spending the morning outside seemed better than spending it in front of a computer screen.
I was handed a phone to sign a waiver, given a T-shirt and directed to get a hard hat, safety glasses, gloves, a nail apron and knee pads.
Within minutes, construction crew leader Pauline
LeBlanc had me and two other women — Shavion Scott and Tameisha Brown — assembling wood frames for the walls.
Pauline was a chemical and environmental engineer who worked as a safety consultant before joining Habitat for Humanity about five years ago, and she directed two newbies to Habitat — me and Tameisha — and one veteran of about 10 build days — Shavion — with patience and clarity.
Working for Habitat for Humanity, she explained, requires more than construction expertise. It requires being able to break processes down into little tiny baby steps, then being able to teach those steps to people who are starting from zero.
It also takes the courage to hand those people a circular saw, after, of course, demonstrating and reinforcing proper safety procedures.
Pauline shared her story during one of the frequent water breaks that she called, as the sun climbed and reflected off the concrete foundation where we were kneeling to hammer the wood frames together.
Two hours later, and it was time for lunch with a brief reflection on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s idea of the “beloved community,” one in which everybody belongs and cares for one another and there is truly justice for all.
Sitting in the shade of the canopy, volunteers shared why they chose to participate. For most, it was because they wanted to help, even if they would never meet the people who will someday live in the houses they helped build.
They discussed whether that was true altruism, since the act of helping made them feel good, so they were getting something out of it, and what a real beloved community would look like. Then they discarded their paper plates and sandwich wrappers, folded and stacked their chairs, and picked up their tools again.