Helping Hands: Building Hope and Homes
By Leslie Pohl
Here we are getting to the end of Covid (I hope). The Helping Hands Care Team is just waiting in the wings to start back to doing what it's good at, fixing houses and helping folks.
Over the years, volunteers from Lehigh Presbytery have traveled to several other states to repair the damage from storms and other natural disasters, sometimes months after the event. The team travels together to these sites, usually staying for a week to provide helping hands where needed.
They have pulled out moldy drywall and carpeting and replaced it with new; plastered and painted; repaired roofs and installed new kitchen cabinets and plumbing. There is no job these dedicated helpers are not willing to do - and many are 'learning on the job' (below: scraping off the old flooring before installing a new surface).
Typically the trips occur in the spring and fall but before we venture out again there are a couple of challenges to overcome: