We all know how hard COVID has taken a hit on everyone this past year. We have had a lot of discussion on how we were going to continue operating in a way that would still serve the most homeowners possible while being safe and abiding to COVID guidelines. We came up with a way to shift our model this year so that while we are unable to do indoor home repairs, we continued on with exterior repairs to homes as well as doing park revitalization projects and Safe-and-Healthy Home kit distributions. On Saturday April 24th, National Rebuilding Day, we provided 10 homeowners in the Farmington Hills, Southfield, and Huron Valley area with a variety of exterior repairs, built changing stalls at Heritage Park in Farmington Hills along with other clean up tasks for the park and distributed 50 kits to residents of Farmington Hills. Through these efforts, we were able to engage over 250 volunteers that day.
With this event proving to work so well, we decided would host our first Summer Rebuilding Day two months later. This event expanded into a two day event that allowed us to engage a new volunteer base with people we had not previously worked with before. On Friday June 4th and Saturday June 5th, we were able to complete exterior repairs for 4 homeowners, revitalize Mattie McKinney Hatchett Park, and distribute 105 Safe-and-Healthy Home kits to Pontiac residents. In these efforts, we engaged 43 volunteers and created new partnerships with Pontiac Community Foundation and Molina Healthcare. Both Borg Warner and Home Depot had teams of volunteers on site at home repair projects as well. We couldn’t be happier with how the event turned out and it is something we hope to continue for next year as well. We are very happy that we have been able to continue service to homeowners even if it is on a different scale than in previous years. We are so thankful for all of the volunteers that are still willing to get their hands dirty to help serve the communities through the pandemic. As we continue to navigate the rest of the year, we hope to do a similar event in the fall, serving more residents than before.