Community Action and the Incredible Dinner

Yesterday our group was split into two and taken to separate builds, one with Habitat and one with Community Action. I was with the second group and we ended up in a pretty run down neighborhood in Beloit. The organization had bought 30 houses in the area from the government and is now rebuilding and remodeling them in order to sell or rent them to low income families.

I spent the morning cleaning the house and then painting trim. We took a very long with lunch and many of us fell asleep from the heat and general fatigue. We were treated with sack lunches from the host that had great sandwiches, carrots, apples, chips, and cookies. Then our site supervisor whipped out ice cream sandwiches; they were heavenly.

Despite the heat advisory I chose go work in the community garden in the afternoon because it wasn't as stuffy as the house. We spent the rest of the day pulling weeds and running under the sprinkler to cool off.

After the build and before dinner many of us took naps. When I woke up I actually thought it was morning. I was in for a pleasant suprise for dinner; we all were.

We were taken to a local's house who had prepared an amazing feast. To begin there was a food truck in the drive way that served fried cheese curds, milkskakes, root beer floats, and sundaes. The cheese curds were perfect. For many on the trip it was a new experience.

Dinner included brats, salads, quinoa, rice pilaf, fruit salad, and best of all sweet corn. I mostly indulged in the corn! It was so juicy from being grilled.

After dinner and a bike and build presentation we were treated by fire-less works in which two guys dumped huge buckets of golf balls off of the garage balcony. They tumbled down and bounced all over the driveway. Following that we had a water balloon toss which ended in simply attacking each other with water balloons. I was happy to stand by and watch the madness.

The evening was lovely and relaxing. The house was beautiful, food amazing, and company enjoyable. Everybody had a great night and we will always remember Janesville!