Carter Work Project with Habitat for Humanity

Last week was the 30th annual Carter Work Project with Habitat for Humanity. I volunteered all 5 days, and after a weekend of mostly resting, I'm still tired. I've been more tired before, and I've been more dirty, but wowza, this is the most cumulative tiredness I can remember. And that's after numerous years of mission trips to Mexico and Habitat build-a-thons.

But it was a for a great cause, and hundreds of people in Oakland and thousands across the U.S. got together during the week to help build decent, affordable homes for people or repair the homes they already have so they can afford to stay in them. Thanks to everyone who came out to work, whether for one day or more, and to everyone who donated to help make it happen!

We now return to our irregularly scheduled working and posting. And some more resting.
Lots more pictures from the week:

Day 1 of the Carter Work Project with Habitat for Humanity

Today was the first day of the Carter Work Project with Habitat for Humanity in Oakland. This is the 30th year the Carters have been working with Habitat for Humanity. I haven't even hit 20 years yet, so their dedication to Habitat and to other projects to improve people's lives around the world is inspiring. And President Carter just turned 89 years old, so it's all the more impressive.

As you might have noticed in the picture above, I got a little dirty during today's work day. The house we're working on is between Edes and 98th Avenue, and we're tearing off the very old roof and putting on a new one. We made great progress on Ramona's house today, but it was dirty work. There are 12 new houses near the East Oakland Sports Center, plus home repairs on 8 houses nearby and a bit further afield.

The Carters will be in the South Bay tomorrow, then off to Denver, New York and New Jersey for the rest of the week. Highlights today included hearing the Carters speak again (they spoke at the opening reception at the Paramount Theatre last night), getting our house crew photo taken with them, and getting served dessert by Garth Brooks. I heard Rep. Barbara Lee was there, too, but I didn't see her.

I'll be at the project all week, so posts will be lighter this week, depending on how tired I am at the end of each day.

my Oakland map

Finishing off map week is the most accurate but least useful map: how I visualize Oakland. It's by definition 100% accurate because it's how I think of things, but it's not terribly useful outside of telling people how I think of our fair city.

View my Oakland map in a larger map
It's kind of like a single data point in the Mapping Oakland project. Not nearly as useful as a bunch of maps like this aggregated together.

Some good news is that I heard back from Robert, the researcher behind the Mapping Oakland project. Although the web page hasn't been updated, he's still working on things:

I am actually finishing up the analysis for Temescal and Fruitvale districts... I hope to have the maps up on the web page sometime by mid April. I'm presenting the results in April, so after I complete my presentation I will have a bit of time to start uploading the maps to the net.

Back to my map. You may be wondering why some large areas are a single district, while a few small neighborhoods get labeled. In no particular order:

• Hiller Highlands - this is known (at least by name) to most residents of the Oakland hills, because it's where the 1991 Oakland firestorm started
• Sobrante Park - this neighborhood at the far south end of Oakland is where I've been volunteering to help build houses with Habitat for Humanity East Bay for the last several years (and an older development 10+ years ago, too)
• Village Bottoms - I first heard of Village Bottoms because of a workshop at West Coast Green last year
• Ghosttown - I heard about Ghosttown because of Ghost Town Farm, Novella Carpenter's urban farm. It got a big jump in publicity when she published Farm City, a book about her experiences with urban farming.

The rest of my map is much more arbitrary, depending on how much time I've spent in different parts of Oakland and their proximity to different landmarks like Lake Merritt or the zoo.

All in all, not a particularly useful map. It'd be great to be able to compare other people's similar maps, though not very practical because of the difficulty in creating them.

Splish Splash

party in the bird bath

The birds were happy about the warmer weather and the break in the rain. A bunch of them celebrated by taking a bath, something they couldn't do during the colder weather because the bird bath was frozen solid. I'd have set up the tripod and taken better pictures, but they came, they splashed around long enough for me to take a couple shots with the point and shoot, then all left at once. It was fun to watch while it lasted, though.

Habitat home dedication

The birds weren't the only ones happy about the warmer, drier weather. I took advantage of the break in the weather to take some pictures over to the Habitat for Humanity office. Saturday was a dedication ceremony at the Edes Avenue building site. Twenty families received the keys to their new homes, and I took pictures at the Thrivent Builds sponsored house. Fortunately the rain held off for the ceremony.

bike full o' beer

On the way home I did some grocery shopping, and did my usual load up of the e-bike. Yes, that's a case of beer on the back. Lucky's (at least the one in Montclair) is having a special on a Gordon Biersch winter sampler. It includes a winter bock, a blonde bock, a märzen, and a Czech-style pilsner. The bocks and märzen are very good; the pilsner is just OK. But for $20.99 for a case of good beer, it's a great deal while it lasts. And while they're not in Oakland like Linden Street Brewery, they are local to the bay area.

Habitat for Smallish Poultry

chicken coop at
City Slicker Farms

Doesn't have the same ring to it as Habitat for Huge Manatees of The Simpsons fame. In any event, that's what I worked on a bit on Thursday at City Slicker Farms. I'd told one of the former Americorps members who helped build the coop about my visit a while back, and they mentioned that the coop gets too hot. Fast forward to this week, and I rode my bike over with my heavy duty drill and a largish Forstner bit to add some ventilation in the soffits. CSF still has some work to do on the yard, but they're hoping to have chickens for eggs by the end of the month. If you want to help, you can volunteer there on Thursdays and Saturdays -- check the CSF website for details.

Today I was out for my usual Friday activity of working at Habitat for Humanity in the Sobrante Park neighborhood south of the Coliseum. A couple of big groups were out, one from Traveler's Insurance, and the other from Archstone. Thanks to them and the other volunteers, some good progress was made on the habitats for some Oakland humanity. On my ride down this morning, I had an awesome moment that still has me chuckling when I think about it. Along San Leandro Street, a youngster in the back of a car and I made eye contact and smiled. When I caught up with their car at the light, the guy in the passenger seat grabbed a mic (who has mics sitting in their car?) and started doing an ad-lib karaoke number to whatever was on the radio. The youngster in the back seat and I both got a good laugh out of it. The car zoomed off when the light changed, but I caught up with them again at the next light, and he did it again to the next song. As the car zoomed off for a second time, I yelled "encore!" and the guy yelled "have a good day!". Definitely made my morning. That's one of the things you miss by driving.

GRID Alternatives 2009 Solar-a-thon

solar install

Saturday I took pictures at GRID Alternatives 2009 Solar-a-thon at Habitat for Humanity East Bay's Edes Avenue development. I did a brief write-up on the Thrivent Builds blog, and there's a great post over at Oakland North focusing on one of the homeowners who was there to help install the panels on her house.

signs: Scotty's Market

Scotty's Market

Just up the street from the Habitat for Humanity construction site is Scotty's Market.

Habitat for Humanity Build-a-thon

future home owner Emma Navarro
and house leader Gary Struthers

There's a nice article in the Oakland Tribune about where I've been the last couple of days, the 2009 Habitat for Humanity East Bay build-a-thon. I'm working on the house of the future homeowner quoted in the article, Emma Navarro. She worked along side the rest of us (homeowners have to put in 500 hours of sweat equity in lieu of a down payment, then make regular payments after that), and is very excited about having her own home. She and her husband and 2 daughters live in a 1 bedroom apartment currently. I've got more pictures and info on the Habitat East Bay Thrivent Builds blog.

MLK Day of Service

I spent the day at Habitat for Humanity's building site on Edes Avenue, along with 25-30 other volunteers and the Habitat staff. It was a beautiful day to be outdoors and working with others. We got a lot done, and everybody I saw seemed to be having a good time. A lot of people were first-time volunteers, but hopefully not just one-time volunteers.

I enjoyed it, in part because we were doing mostly framing, and that's one of my favorite parts of construction. I'm a little stiff, so I imagine many of the first-time volunteers are really going to feel it.

What did you do for the MLK Day of Service?

morning orientation

a wall going up

Ben the Builder?

making Oakland better

Habitat for Humanity

One organization that is working to make Oakland better is Habitat for Humanity East Bay. I've volunteered with them for coming up on 14 years. They've built decent, affordable housing to give families a hand up for 20 years, and have built over 200 homes around Alameda and Contra Costa counties. There have been homes in Fruitvale, West Oakland and the two large developments south of the Oakland coliseum on 105th Avenue and Edes Avenue. These are good, solid homes, and the more recent ones are built using various green building techniques and include solar panels from PG&E. The partner families work hard, along side staff and volunteers, to complete 500 hours of sweat equity and to help build their homes, and pay a mortgage like other home owners, so these people are invested in their homes and in Oakland. You can read about the dedication of the more recent group of homes here (PDF of the story from SFGate.com).

Habitat East Bay also runs a ReStore, selling new and nearly-new construction materials. If you're doing some remodeling, or just repainting a room, check it out for some low-cost materials. There's a nice piece about the Habitat ReStore on Channel 7 news.

One of the great parts about volunteering with Habitat for Humanity is that you don't need any experience. When I started volunteering with Habitat, I barely knew how to swing a hammer. Over the years, various people have taught me a ton about construction (enough that I designed, permitted and built an addition to our house myself). And yes, Habitat is having a Day of Service event for MLK Day prior to Obama's inauguration.

What organizations do you work with that are making Oakland better?