Every year, SAP has an event called the Month of Service, where every employee is given time off from work to volunteer in one of a number of venues. Some are right in the building and only take a couple of hours, others are outside the building. The participation in this event is impressive – numbers from the Canadian SAP offices varied between 42% (c’mon Calgary!) to 72% in Waterloo to a confusing 129% in Ottawa. Overall, over 60% of Canadian SAP employees participated in some volunteer event and in addition, SAP donated money to some of the charities involved. This is a great event and kudos to SAP for doing this.

Oddly, I don’t remember hearing about this event last year, though I am now aware that many employees did take part. I wanted to do my part and bump up those Waterloo numbers, so I chose Habitat for Humanity. They are doing a build in Kitchener, and an employee who volunteered with them last year was organizing it again this year. I love building stuff but I’m not very knowledgeable about such things, so a place like this is perfect for me: they’ll tell me exactly what to do, they have the tools and equipment available to do it, and they have truly knowledgeable people around to help and advise.

When we first bought our house, we had lots of repairs to be done and I always enjoyed doing them. I can do simple electrical stuff and I don’t totally suck at working with wood, though I’m not going to be building a dining room suite anytime soon. I’ve installed phone lines and electrical outlets and replaced light fixtures and such, and I enjoyed helping my father-in-law and brother-in-law build our “cold room” (pantry) and workshop in the basement as well as replacing our deck. One thing I don’t enjoy is plumbing. For some reason I can just never get the hang of plumbing, though I have installed new showerheads a couple of times. That’s brain-dead easy but Gail’s done some more difficult stuff like replacing the kitchen faucets and our bathroom sink and she’s pretty good at it.

But I digress. We arrived on site around 8am where there were some snacks and coffee/tea available. There were about 15 of us from SAP plus a bunch of contractors. At 8:30 they had a safety presentation and after that we all geared up in our borrowed CSA-approved boots and hardhats and headed out to the work site. The area they’re working on is huge (see the picture below, taken from the top of the scaffolding on the new block). The site manager was telling us that if they were to buy just enough land for one house in this area, it would cost near $200,000 – and that’s without a house. Much cheaper to buy a large lot and put up townhouses, which is what they’re doing in Kitchener. There was one block of six houses that were mostly finished, and they’d started another block of four in the back corner, which was where we were working.

We started by bringing a pickup-truck worth of 4’x8′ sheets of plywood down to the site, and then passed them all up to the second floor. Those were later installed on the roof by some of my colleagues. We then installed a couple of 2x4s horizontally through the trusses, which I believe were to be used for running wire between rooms. The trusses needed spacers installed, so that was our next task. While getting ready for that, another contractor came by and asked if we had extra people since he could use a hand. I volunteered and so he and I headed to the other end of the building, where the all of the siding had been done except for the very top pieces. My first task was to install five pieces of J-channel, so I needed to measure the pieces, cut them to length, and nail them in place. Once that was done, I cut the last pieces of siding for each of the five sections – this took a lot longer than I expected and I burned through a couple of utility knife blades doing it. Finally that was done and I was able to install them and screw them into place.

That’s it. That’s all I got done all day. Doesn’t sound like much, does it? It was a lot of work though and my shoulders and legs were feeling it over the next couple of days.

There was a 10-15 minute break at 10:45 or so, where they supplied some ham sandwich fixin’s as well as some crackers, cheese, and fruit. Lunch was at 12:30 and was catered by people from a local church. They had brought a bunch of baked potatoes and all kinds of toppings: grated cheese, bacon, onions, diced tomatoes, chili, sour cream, and a bunch more. For dessert there was more fruit as well as brownies, lemon bread, date bread, and banana bread. The food was excellent.

I have lots of kudos to go around. First to my SAP colleagues and particularly Dave Brandow for organizing it. Secondly to the church people for supplying lunch – it was fantastic. Thirdly to Andrew and Darrell and Marcus and the other construction pros who were all helpful and very patient with a bunch of non-pros. Fourth, to the person who gave us the introduction and safety training – I believe her name was Janine but I feel terrible that I don’t remember for sure. She reminded me of Penelope Garcia from Criminal Minds – particularly her voice. And finally to all of the Habitat for Humanity people everywhere, those who donate, and those who volunteer. You are doing a great thing and I am looking forward to volunteering again next year.