News
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Scenes from New Orleans, April 2007
photos by Doris McLeod
One of the most interesting building sites that Habitat has in the Katarina recovery area is the Musician's Village in the Upper Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
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Franklin Tech Students Will Help Build on L Street
A strong new partner has arrived to boost our building capacity in Turners Falls. Franklin County Technical School students will be installing the plumbing, heating, and electrical work, plus supplementing PVH volunteers in carpentry.
This is the first project that FCTS has done with PVH, but they come with five years experience in building affordable housing with Rural Development, Inc. Pioneer Valley Habitat has worked with Smith Voke in Northampton for the past two years on Westhampton Road. This partnership helped lead to the new agreement with Franklin Tech.
The students will be juniors in the electrical and plumbing and heating programs, and juniors and seniors in carpentry. The carpenters arrived first to do the heavy lifting of roof trusses. PVH volunteers had framed the first floor and part of the second floor.
PVH in the News:
In late June, over forty volunteers came to South Congregational Church in Amherst to participate in Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity's Operation Home Delivery. The project was a way for our community to take part in the Gulf Coast relief effort. Our plan was to build wall panels for one house and ship it to Mobile County, Alabama. We estimated that all of this would take approximately one and a half days.
However, we were amazed when, after only two hours of labor, over half of the panels were finished. In addition to having a group of extremely wonderful, enthusiastic volunteers, we were boosted by Mark McLeod and his crew from Teagno Construction, using materials sold at-cost from Cowles Lumber. Teagno went above and beyond by preparing all of the wood planks so that they would be ready for the volunteers to use right away. Even more remarkably, all this work was done under a tarp in the pouring rain. At one point, we had to ask the volunteers to slow down so that the news crew coming at 2 o'clock would have something to film! On Sunday, we loaded the panels into a truck and the house was on its way to Alabama.
Special thanks to South Congregational Church for hosting us and providing food, to Cowles Lumber Yard for supplying us with materials, and of course to Teagno Construction for their invaluable assistance.
Jess Wallis and Claire Bolton,Volunteer coordinators
Spring Fling a Great Success
It was a beautiful spring day at the Look Park Garden House in Northampton. Everything is set and people started coming in. It was a few hours earlier people were starting to set up for this years Spring Fling. The volunteers were putting up the quilts and the silent auction items were being arranged. Everyone was working hard to get things organized and looking it’s best. Lyn Heady, event organizer, was making sure things were moving on time. Before long the place was full of people and everyone was admiring the quilts and checking out the silent auction items that had been donated. Auctioneers David Sullivan and Bill O’Riordan arrived and they were ready to begin.
Lyn would like to thank Dave and Bill who did a great job; also she would like to thank Jane Lane and her quilter friends, a long with George and the silent auction helpers who help make it a great success. The beautiful quits and auctions items raised over $8100. It was a great Spring Fling.
Work has begun on L Street in Turners Falls. Partner family Connie Forcier and her children celebrate as the hole is dug. March 28, 2006.
The Homebuilding 101 Intersession Course at Amherst College
is over, and here is a great collection of action photos of it, courtesy of Samuel Masinter.
Amherst College will provide the land, as well as volunteer labor, for the construction of four new affordable housing units. The college and the local chapter of Habitat for Humanity have announced a plan - the first in the history of Habitat for Humanity - to donate three acres of college land off South East Street in Amherst to Pioneer Valley Habitat.
read full report
The First Congregational Church of Shelburne, UCC, has become the newest partner, or covenant, congregation of Pioneer Valley Habitat. Read all about it.
Progress on the Westhampton Road site
is reported weekly by George Hollywood and can be viewed here.
Progress on the Turners Falls site
is reported weekly by Gary Snyder and can be viewed here.
PVH welcomes St. James Episcopal Church as a Covenant Congregation! Read all about it.
PVH Launches Training for Site Supervisors and Crew leaders
Sheila Litchfield trains students
Volunteer site supervisors are key to our building program. Site supervisors do not need to be tradespeople, they just need to know how to do the task scheduled for the day and like working with people. Site supervisors staff the construction work parties on weekends, teaching and coaching volunteers to complete the task(s) of the day. We are also cultivating volunteers to be crew leaders. Crew leaders assist the site supervisor and may lead the work of a small group working on a specific task.
Steve lectures from a ladder
June 1st a group of 14 volunteers participated in the first training led by Steve Ferrari and Mark Lange. The hands on training topic was laying out and installing Fiber Cement Siding. The next training on July 6th will cover hanging doors and doing interior trim. In August the training will cover framing up a new house (to take place at the new house under construction at Westhampton Road in Northampton).
If you are interested in volunteering as a site supervisor or crew leader, please contact Mark Lange at 268-7131.