Building Better Homeless Shelters
Home Building Foundation Board President Brian Schmidt brought his team from Brian Schmidt Builder, and HBF Board Vice President Brian Boggs recruited another from Pacific Crest Custom Cabinetry to provide volunteer power for a very worthy cause. Catholic Charities Kenton Women’s Village had a long list of repairs that needed done, and this volunteer work crew showed up together in late February to help. Schmidt says his employees were excited to join their first HBF volunteer work day . ”It was super awesome to be involved.”
Between the two companies 26 volunteers showed up first thing in the morning for the five-hour “Care Day” in North Portland. Experienced carpenters got right to work to repair damaged staircases. Another team started building a covered porch for the kitchen. People who typically work in offices grabbed a shovel or rake and began spreading an enormous pile of crushed stone, restoring paths between sleeping pods. A pair scrubbed siding, which had been stained by winter rains.
The residents of the Village told us they were excited to see the work being done. A resident, Liza, said the work will help keep her safe. She showed us the bruises she still had from a fall during the recent winter storm because the ground beneath her front steps had worn away.
Toll Brothers Teams Up in Tigard
Toll Brothers sent some of its employees in early February to help HBF at Family Promise Tualatin Valley “Bridge to Home” facility in Tigard. The converted hotel has 61 rooms for families, and requires substantial maintenance to keep it operating 24 hours a day.
Led by Alina Force, the Toll Brothers team joined HBF’s Kyle Ellerbe and Teresa Spangler for some heavy lifting. Multiple boxes of canned food needed to go from an upstairs room down to the main floor, where the shelter offers meals out of the hotel’s old breakfast room. HBF’s Ellerbe proved invaluable, having obtained advanced skills with a hand truck from a summer job with a beer distributor. The Toll Brothers team also helped to clean the playroom, and decorate the lobby.
They were praised In Family Promise’s newsletter: “At our shelter, Bridge to Home, we transitioned our festive decor from the winter holidays to “Heart for Kids” month. The Home Building Foundation and Toll Brothers’ Builders combined their efforts to provide whimsical Valentine decor and cheerful volunteers to decorate our lobby, dining room, and playroom. Thanks to their efforts and Karen E., our playroom received a thorough cleaning and reorganizing along with projects in several other areas in our shelter." Toll Brother’s Force tells HBF they were exhausted at the end of the day, but enjoyed their experience so much they want to come back.
Care Days Create Community
Home Building Foundation harnesses volunteer power each year with shelter building, and work parties like these. Our 2023 tally shows 552 people volunteered with HBF, resulting in 4,608 hours of help. The value of that volunteer labor was a staggering $138,040 dollars.
This Care Day for Kenton Women’s Village generated more than $5,000 worth of labor at a minimum. Service providers tell us they often don’t have room in their budgets for maintenance, and HBF Care Days allow them to spend their resources helping their clients.
Research shows corporate volunteering such as Care Days bring benefits to companies as well. The Harvard Business Review reports that volunteer programs boost productivity, increase employee engagement, and improve hiring and retention. In fact, studies show the more people volunteered, the better they performed on their work tasks.
Pacific Crest’s Boggs has brought volunteers to several Care Days, saying “It always amazing me to see what the building industry can accomplish in just a few hours of giving back to the community.” Boggs says he has a waiting list of employees who want to help next time. The results are impressive. With just a $3,000 investment in materials, HBF estimates the retail value of the new paths, the steps and covered patio would cost at least $ 8,000.
HBF encourages you to gather a group for a Care Day so you can learn first- hand what a difference a day makes. Contact Chris McDowell at Chrism@hbapdx.org to learn more.