Last day.

So today was our last day in New Jersey, the state of huge, elaborate, beachy houses and the beach. 

It's been a wonderful trip so far, however the kids of the trip have been working hard for long hours for the past three days and woke up tired. We packed a little before having our small morning group and returned to the newly raised home where we had worked on the hurricane ties. That, in my opinion, was the hardest one to do. So naturally, what do they have us do? More hurricane ties!~ 

It wasn't awful, we worked diligently and listened to music. The music that really stuck with me was Justin Timberlake and Green Day and other things I listened to back in the day. 

We worked until around twelve or so and headed to our temporary church home to pack up. Nothing particularly amazing happened then. We just cleaned, packed up and left. 

Sense then we've been in our designated cars. In our car we laid back and watched a movie, laughing about Chuck Norris and Lance Armstrong being shoved into a movie together. When the movie had ended we were faced with the challenge of boredom so with my moderate technology skills I discovered a way to hook up our phones and iPods to the car and play our own music. 

Since then it's been a really long and awesome jam session with ice cream. 

THE END

-Anonymous 

Day 5

Greetings one last time from New Jersey. Right now we are packing up and cleaning out our rooms. Earlier today we finished nailing hurricane ties to the same house that we worked on a few days ago. It was tough, but our music got us through and we finished pretty quickly. Then we said goodbye to Ian, our awesome supervisor that we've been working with all week. Now we are just about ready to hit the road and face some serious holiday traffic. See you in a few hours, Longmeadow!

- Lisa Garrity

Day 4

During our day yesterday, we sanded down a house and primed the whole interior. For lunch, the Salvation Army came to the house we were working on and they made us hamburgers. As the day went on and we finished the house, we came back to the church we are staying at and we all went to the beach. Once we got back from the beach, we cleaned up for dinner and the church which we are staying at, and the people from the church made us dinner. It was potluck style and we all got to meet new people, which was a good experience. 

-Katherine Smith

Working Hard on Wednesday

Todays work involved sanding the drywall and putting on the primer coat in a house where the water damage had been so extensive that all of the walls, electrical and heating systems had to be replaced.

Tuesday night

Hi all!

Teagan here. I guess I am the blogger of the night. Today was pretty eventful and we added a few photos from today's work in our last blog. 

This morning we continued our work at reverend Scotland's house. We were filling his basement with dirt to make it into a crawl space so the insurance company doesn't charge him a whole ton more money for the flood insurance. So basically up until lunch we were shoveling dirt into wheelbarrows and wheeling it around to the back of the house. The. We dumped the dirt from one wheelbarrow to the next one that was about three feet down in the basement and then filled in the basement.

Then we took a nice break for lunch. And I'm sure there were some lovely conversations that I missed because I personally decided lunch was a good time to take a quick nap on the hammock.

After lunch/nap time we went to another house that was was just lowered. Because of the new flood line and insurance your first floor needs one at a certain height or the insurance company can charge a crazy amount of money for flood insurance. So basically the second hous we worked on today had a bunch of steel rods slid underneath and then completely picke up so they could build new foundation that is much higher. Then yesterday the placed it on its new foundation. We got to hammer a ton of nails into the wood. Part attached to wood of the house and the other to the foundation. It was fun at first because it was different but then it go really tiring reaching up and hammering all the time. Also it was snowing insulation on our heads from the hammers!!! Fun right! Then we had to be back at the church for something very important... The USA vs. Belgium World Cup game so we sadly couldn't stop for ice cream. When we it back some of us (Mattie, Libby and I) watched the game while everyone else went to the beach before dinner. The outcome was not as we hoped but it was a fun game to watch.

We aren't really sure what we are working on tomorrow yet but I'm sure we will enjoy it! Hope all is well in longmeadow!

Good night,

Teagan Northrup

Pictures of Tuesdays Work Day

These pictures are of both the inside and outside of the basement (aka "The Pit") they have been working in.  They have been hauling dirt into the basement to create a crawl space and to reinforce the basement walls against future flooding.

Today the group also worked to attach Hurricane Ties to the house foundation so that in strong winds the house is more likely to stay attached to the foundation.

Day 3

Today we went to help out a local survivor of super storm sandy. We filed in his basement with dirt to help prevent damage if there was another flood. We were split into two groups, the kids in the basement and the kids who wheeled the dirt to the basement. First, both of us worked in the basement. It was cramped but shady and a lot of work. We did a lot of heavy lifting and it soon got very hot and sweaty. After lunch; which consisted of pb&j on bagels with cookies water and chips; we worked outside by bringing dirt into the basement by using squeaky   wheelbarrows. After our long day of work, week took a quick stop to get some delicious ice cream close to where we worked. Then we went to the beach to wash off the dirty sweat coating we were covered in. The waves were huge and we were getting thrown into the ocean on multiple occasions. It was fantastic and were looking forward to going again. For dinner we had walking tacos, our personal favorite. They are bags of crushed chips mixed with taco meat and other toppings that you would normally put on a taco. After dinner we had a brief worship service where we washed each others hands as Jesus did when he washed the decibels feet. We sang songs at the end of the service. When we got to our room we played apples to apples and washed all of the sand out of our hair. We all slept nicely to rest up for another day of hard work.

~Reiley & Jenna