The non-profit Rebuilding Together St. Joseph County hosts two community volunteer days every year, helping bring life to some homes in our community.
Five homes were chosen in the Southeast neighborhood of South Bend with more than 500 hundreds people working together to make changes to these houses.
Some of these changes focused on aesthetics like painting and other visual repairs, but many changes addressed function by adding more railings and safer stairs.
Patricia Blanchette was the ‘Rebuilding Together’ House Captain for one of the homes.
She said a large amount of work was done in this brief one day window.
“We’ve already finished painting the entire upstairs. We are stripping wallpaper in the living room, and we are repainting that we put jack posts under the stairs. We put water resistant paint on the basement walls to try and keep the house a little bit more water resistant and a little bit more stable for the next 30 years.” saidBlanchette.
The home owner, Deloris, grew up in this home with her eleven other siblings.
She told WSBT, before her mother passed away, she hoped one of her kids would keep the home in the family.
Deloris did just that and she hopes to be in the home for many more years.
Blanchette said, helping people stay and thrive in the community they love makes today that much more special.
“This house is owned and lived in by Mrs. Dolores Clark. We only work on houses that are occupied by the people that own it, so these are people that have lived in our community for a long time and they just need a little bit of help getting their house back together.” said Blanchette.
Volunteers were all working simultaneously to be efficient in this one day project.
Another volunteer hopes her work can help the house but also the community.
“A lot of the volunteers here they have a lot of really great skills and it’s just a little bit here and there and the more that we can give back to the community the more we can help out and really help her the more she can have a more fulfilling life.” saidTiffany Chaney, Rebuilding Together Volunteer.
If you’re looking to volunteer your time, click here for more information.