I’m fortunate enough to work for a company that emphasizes community service and changing lives for the better. Yesterday, a couple co-workers and I took advantage of this company quality and spent the day with Habitat for Humanity instead of in the office.

We helped with the building of a house for a 4 person family in Oberlin. I carried boards, cut the bottoms of door frames with a Sawzall, installed supports for all the wall frames, and marked the tops of the frames for the roof installation.

I got some blisters and bruises; I think most of them came from the Sawzall. More positively, I got some physical activity and a sense of accomplishment from helping to build a place for a family to live.

On another note, I read in the paper recently that the Lorain County Habitat for Humanity is looking into renovating houses rather than building new ones. I think this is a great idea since there are so many cheap empty houses in the area these days.