Kudos and Props

The Building Empire is amazing. My past week of working with Hands On on the Guiding Light project was wonderful. Thank you to Eddy, Shelly, and all the hard working volunteers. The amount of work and the quality standard is impressive. Good luck next week!

Transport Pictures

Building Empire Update 3

The Building Empire has been busting
it seriously for the past 9 days at the Manning house. The floors and trim are underway with walls hung, mudded, and painted. It was a new level of effort and coordination that's been successful thus far. We're shaping up nice for the arrival of our dramatic friends from the north. They seem cool, but on TV its just one tragedy after another. Hopefully the visit will go smoother than their lives. (on tv)






Here's some photos from the big Manning house push.
1. Celebrity guest Dr. G-Mo instructing the freshies on how to keep it reeeaaaalll.

















2. House mud wizard on the national syndicate hot seat and LOVING IT!

3. Mystery picture of the week. Any correct guesses gets you a free trip to the spin cycle to watch an old Ice Cream Josh DVD, Rambo or sumthin. 4. No, its not snowin' inside silly heads, we're in Southern Mississippi. Thats sheetrock mud. Gee Whiz.

-Luc

Christmas!

During the Christmas season, Hands On volunteers helped deliver presents to 7 different residents and their families! These residents were adopted by various organizations, thank you to those who made Christmas in Biloxi a success!!

Seattle Works: Hands On Affiliate from Seattle

There's a group of 6 Seattlites sitting in the Gulfport Airport, waiting for our last minute flight out of town. All 12 of us were originally supposed to head out tomorrow morning, but bad weather changed our plans. But flexibility is a beautiful thing, so while a night out in New Orleans won't happen for us, it does mean we will be able to get back to Seattle in time for work and "life as normal" - whatever that means.

We wanted to share with the HOGC community some blogs that we have been keeping during our trip. Twelve of us from Seattle Works came down last Sunday. Seattle Works is a Hands On affiliate that focuses on the demographic of those in their 20s and 30s. While we regularly volunteer and are involved in our local Seattle community, this is our first trip out of town. We have been volunteering at HOGC for the last 6 days. For details, feel free to visit our group's blog.

Being Seattlites, not only did we make our mark by starting the Coffee Whisperer tradition (well, it isn't a tradition until y'all carry it on - so make Jaxon proud!)... but a few of us proudly follow the "computer geek" stereotype and have personal blogs devoted to our time in Biloxi.

Ryan and Noelle both have been recording their thoughts and pictures, and will continue to make updates as they process and advocate for the distaster relief efforts. Hey, afterall, Ryan works for Bill and Noelle works for Paul - so you never know what resources can be tapped into.

Also, a quick shoutout to the rockstar long-termers that completely floored us with their dedication, devotion, leadership skills, flexibility, hospitality, gratitude and humor. A huge thank you to Eddie, Luc, Michelle, Aron, Mike, Sheli, Sarah, Kate, Tosh, Brannon, Amanda, Suzanne, Guillermo, Kristin, MJ and Brian - and I'm sure we're forgetting some people - but you guys helped make our week an amazing experience. While your long-term experience inevitably gets a little jaded over time; our interactions with you all deeply impacted our experience.

Building Empire Update 2

If you've been getting all your information from this blog about what's going on, let this attempt to catch you up.
On the 22nd of January, 88 folks from the soap opera Guiding Light including 24 "stars" and 30 "camera people" are coming down to work for a week and film. They are promoting volunteerism. We dig volunteering. Master ochestration by our fearless and brilliant leaders Sheli of Sheli City and King Edward the 11th.
The Building Empire is currently preparing 3 homes to be in various stages of finishing: Framing at Ms. Ethel's, Sheetrock at Ms. Gerda's, and finishing work at the Mannings. Guiding Light is providing the cash, we are providing the skillz and the sweat.

Please be advised we are heading into some serious business in the next 3 weeks. This first picture is a little hint of the level of vestment we've been vesting. Pictured: Framing prodigy Brian Deubert. Note the envisioned stare. Project: Framing Ms. Ethel's. Questions? Please comment.

The other pictures are from Mr. Georges, house. (No soap opera connection but still sweeeet.)

Pictured: UVM master mud painters.

Segundo: THE unphaseable, multitalented, charismatic Michelle Hamburger, ripping through fiber cement for kitchen tile underlayment.

Tercero: Not only do we build beautiful houses for free, we have cute puppies.

Sincerely, Finish Team Amanda and Luc

Pictures and Stories....

....inspired by my time with you. Pictures here , unfortunately very much out of order. From Ms. Cynthia's, Mr. George's, sunsets, trees.

And, what's an adventure to the South without a legend to go with it? It's dedicated to the long-termers. I enter in about the last two sentences :)

Many warm, wet hugs from the land of mountains and evergreens,
Kelda