For those of you not from this area, let me inform you that we had one heck of a storm system roll through yesterday.   Rain like I have not seen in ages, and in Olean, MPH winds that took down trees, knocked out power and likely did some additional damage that we are not yet aware of (Bob's Woods).  While it was a nasty evening, the day turned out to be a highly productive one for BR.  We began working with Rebuilding Together's Olean Chapter, painting a smaller house in the area, however, given the massive number of volunteers that showed up, the job went quickly and we were soon able to move locations and return to work on Carter's house, which we had started the weekend prior.    We spent quite a bit of time at Carter's and accomplished much with the help of two volunteers that showed up from the Rebuilding Together job.  Additionally, two other BR recruits appeared in the afternoon to help power wash, scrape, re-putty windows and prime...

On Sunday (today) we traveled to Buffalo to continue work on the Justin & Sal house, part of the Make-A-Wish foundations efforts to make their existing home more accessible.  As I mentioned before, the house needs A LOT of work, but I was amazed today to find the progress that has been made during the past 7 days.   The sub floors are in, the walls have more paint, a sliding door (which will eventually lead to a deck) has been installed in Justin's room and there are plans to have the electricity on tomorrow and the new furnace installed Wednesday.   AMAZING stuff happening all over.  BR has been focused on getting the stairwell from hell dry-walled, and today moved one step closer to having the job completed.  Our head engineer, Jim, did some design-on-the-fly and had us reframe a lower, flat ceiling below the existing slanted, uneven, and less stable structure.  It turned out better than I could have imagined and I hate myself for doubting him, if only briefly (lol)...   The walls going up the stairs are also now drywalled, which is an accomplishment given what we had to work with.  Today's crew consisted of myself, Jim, Jen, Scott, Rick, Rob and Laurie from Cricket.  While there are no new pics, I can assure you that things are progressing rapidly on all fronts.  Stay tuned and contact Jim via www.bonaresponds.org to sign up to help.

-Nate

As most of you are aware, there is ALWAYS something going on with BonaResponds.  Whether its mowing trails, collecting items for Haiti, packing items for Haiti, fund raising, etc. it is very rare that they are not busy.  You'll note in a recent post that we started work on a local house in Olean, scraping and painting the exterior for a WW II vet.  Despite best intentions to continue work at "Carter's", BR was called for help in completing a house in Buffalo for a father and his medically fragile son.  You can see more about the family we're helping here.  Carter's WILL get done, but for the immediate future, Justin's needs have to take priority.  The family is on a deadline and the project is much more involved than any one group can handle. Certainly BR would love to have enough volunteers to work on both projects simultaneously, but unfortunately that's not an option while school is out.

Thanks to Cricket Communications who is footing the bill to get the job done, to Make-A-Wish for helping to spearhead the project, and to the many other volunteers who have contributed their time and resources to a truly great project.

Pictures from today's work day are available via the Flickr link to the right.

-Nate

Today i traveled with BonaResponds to the Botanical Gardens in Buffalo to help with a CYC project, scraping and painting the exterior of the building (only a small portion).  On the crew today we had Jim, Jen, myself, and a new volunteer, Andy, an alumni of the SBU MBA program through Hilbert.   I had class with Andy, so it was nice seeing him again outside of class.  Andy also donated a lawnmower, which will be great for mowing Bob's Woods.  Last but not least, Scott, another Bona alumni and Gulf Coast original showed up both to help and to donate a computer for Haiti...   THANKS ANDY & SCOTT!!!

We left SBU around 9am, after collecting our chainsaw gear from storage as we expected to have some tree work to do.  Secretly, I think Jim was excited at the prospect as he is now a chainsaw "master" following the trip to Ohio last week.  Additionally, we had two of the saws back from repair with newly sharpened blades.  Upon receipt of the saws, Jim's eyes lit up a bit, much like a young child getting their first b.b gun...   LOL

When we arrived at the gardens, it turned out that the tree work was already done, so we jumped in on the scraping crew until the rains blew through.  After a brief hiatus, we returned to scraping and then began priming the surfaces for a later application of paint.   Among the people we met today were Todd, the Botanical Gardens facility manager, who gave us and excellent brief history of the building and the "master plan" moving forward.  Todd was also kind of enough to give me a tour of the catacombs underneath the building before leaving...  neat...  We also met several members of the CYC crew that I hadn't met before and actually recruited a passer-by toward the end to volunteer.  I'm not sure its what he expected, but Justice was very helpful and did a great job painting. 

Highlights of the day include the invention of a new game I like to call; "What will Jim do for Money?"  It's a simple game with very few rules...  You pick something you want Jim to do, for example climbing up and over a 16 foot free standing ladder, assign a value that you will donate to his charity, and then haggle with him about the risk and listen to excuses why the task is undoable.   We played three rounds today (clean gutters over a glass roof, eat a hot dog, and go up and over the ladder).  Jim failed all three challenges, leaving a total of $130 on the table...  It's a great game, and I look forward to playing it again in the near future.

To summarize our work today, we scraped, scraped some more, then waited for rain, then scraped, then painted and painted, and painted, then watched Jim paint, and then washed up for the return trip home.  Great day, great work, fun times as always...

-Nate   

 From left to right:  Jen, Jim and Andy priming the scraped surfaces.

Jim slinging paint at the building...

Inside the fern room at the Botanical Gardens...