For one day, over 300 volunteers descended on two small neighborhoods on Syracuse's South and West sides to renovate, rebuild, and construct everything from homes to porches. Syracuse non-profit, Home Headquarters, organized the one-day event that included large donations of paint, lumber, and labor from private and public companies alike.
A house and a life
Danielle Smith is a full-time employee at Landmark Aviation, and is also the full-time mother of a 10-year-old son, Johnathan. Smith's lived on the West Side for most of her life, spending most of it in the same house which used to belong to her grandparents.Today, the same house her grandparents owned, the one she was born in, and now the one she raises her son in has a lot of wear and tear. During the last three years she's lived at the Ostico Street home, she's replaced a roof, a ceiling, and repaired two bursted pipes during the winter months.
Home Headquarters has supported her for some of the repairs, including covering 80 percent of a 20,000 dollar roof replacement.
"I work 40 hours a week" said Smith, "for them to be able to help out is great."
Today, she's paying it back. Smith called in "sick" to her boss to help the volunteers, all complete strangers, paint her house. (Her boss knows the real story) She thinks programs like Home HQ can make a big difference to neighborhoods.
"Even the house right next door to us, it had a bunch of bushes and trees," said Smith about a house where she said, "not the best kind of people would hang out"
"Now you can see what's actually going on," added Smith, and she believes by just clearing away the brush, troublemakers will be less likely to hang out there.
Ali Jackson Popp, one of the events coordinators from Home Headquarters says statistics back up Smith's assertion. She also says putting people in homes they can afford, in good neighborhoods has unmeasurable benefits.
"Kids that live in an owned home rather than rent, are more likely to do better in school and less likely to get into trouble," say Popp.
Speaking of kids, even Smith's son John pitched in. He only had one request, that they not change the color of his house, especially pink.
"I do not like any color, I just like the way it is."
As for how hard the work was, John said it was "infinity times one."
Who showed up to help?
Volunteers and donations varied widely for the event, here's just a partial list:- Children from the Spanish Action League's Youth Program painted plywood boards for windows of vacant houses
- The Onondaga Earth Corps provided landscaping for several houses
- The Salvation Army sent a repair team from their stores
- Sherwin-Williams donated paint and professional labor
No comments:
Post a Comment