Build Day: St Louis

One of the cool things about all of the build days that we've done so far is that none of them have been anything alike. Today we worked with Rebuilding Together for the first time in St Louis. There were two houses across the street from each other and plenty of work for all 30ish people who were there throughout the day. One of the unique aspects of today was that we got to interact with the homeowners, which hasn't been the case in the past builds. It was cool to our faces and stories to a cause we've devoted our summer and more to. 

After spending some time in the morning shuttling folks to doctors (surprisingly, some folks get injured/ill when doing something as simple as cycling cross country), I found myself working on scraping wallpaper off of a wall. Later this summer, a different B&B team will paint the walls we cleared. It was seemingly impossible to complete the whole room in one day, but it was encouraging to see how determined our team was to complete the task (and to see how all the other tasks folks worked on). 

At the end of the day, I went to pick up doc folks and got stuck in the worst traffic ever. A bike would have been handy in that moment. After all had returned and showered, we visited a local bike themed bar, Handlebar, with some Rebuilding Together folks and local B&B alums. It was rather far away, so while I was driving our 15 passenger van back to pick up our second shuttle of folks before bed I had the opportunity to chat with our program director on the phone.  We spoke little of work, and lots of life, and I found myself thinking about how thankful I am to have guidance/mentorship from such solid folks like her. Again with the cheesiness. I guess this means I should head to bed. 

Tomorrow is Joyce's birthday! And I sweep with Drew. Woot.