Volunteers spruce up a shelter

Mountainwood Homes Volunteers

On a pleasant mid-September day, close to forty Mountainwood Homes staff members gathered at the property of Project Homeless Connect’s Day Center in Hillsboro for an all-day renovation blitz. This was not their first foray in helping out at a Home Builders Foundation project site. This year the team tackled a number of issues. A group of carpenters completely rebuilt a front stair case that was collapsing and dangerous to guests. Another small team built a new perimeter privacy fence with working gates. A dozen or so painted interior walls and the front porch. A man on a mini-excavator removed eight-foot-tall blackberry brambles that swallowed up much of the backyard. At the end of the day, the event was a great success for HBF, Project Homeless Connect and the staff members of the custom builder Mountainwood Homes.

Planned well in advance, HBF project manager Chris McDowell coordinated material deliveries and work scope decisions with owner Robert Wood, and talent manager Heidi Augee. The idea of the company-wide work party was to enlist both skilled and unskilled workers to tackle a laundry list of easily accomplishable tasks that would improve the ailing and highly-used day center both aesthetically and functionally. As the saying goes, “many hands make light work.” While HBF has long term plans to replace the roof, add two bathrooms and build a wheelchair ramp for the century-old Craftsman house, this volunteer event was meant to kickoff the project that will ultimately push into the new year with more complicated structural work. But the small measures would be a huge first step.

Day Shelter in Hillsboro, "Before" Image

At the end of the four-hour event, the building and grounds looked dramatically different with fresh mulch, new cedar fencing and front steps, and a freshly painted front porch. Halfway during the push, a half dozen of the Mountainwood team worked to drag a large shed from one side of the property to the other, freeing up a large space in the side yard. For the Day Center staff, the work meant a lot. The improved exterior appearance of the shelter was much needed in making inroads with neighbors who have increasingly become worried about the numbers of houseless people in downtown Hillsboro. The newly built staircases with railings made it easier to get guests with mobility challenges into the building. And the perimeter fence helped to secure the property for staff members. 

Robert and Heather Wood, co-owners of Mountainwood Homes have long supported the Home Builders Foundation acting as builder captain on two projects at the Good Neighbor Center in 2017 and in 2022 as well as being a regular fixture at the annual Trap Shoot fundraiser. Service projects, are also a big part of the Mountainwood tradition. Mountainwood Homes assisted HBF in the Just Compassion Resource Center project back in 2019 with a company-wide work party. In October, HBF will present Mountainwood Homes with the Company of the Year award at the Foundation Builders Breakfast, a fitting honor and testament to how much HBF appreciates the Mountainwood Homes commitment to its shelter projects.

For more information about how you or your company can be involved in a shelter project, contact HBF Project Manager Chris McDowell at chrism@hbapdx.org.