compton initiative

a few years ago ting and i tried to go to a habit for humanity meeting. i say tried because altho we really did show up to the right place at the right time, there was no meeting, and no one we asked had heard of said meeting. ... years later my neighbor debbie tells me about a volunteer project thru her church, seacoast grace. they go to compton and paint houses for people. i was so excited!

1/28/12 my first house

our first compton initiative project was just me and kim. i think debbie got sick? in any case, the house turned out good but on that day, when the paint was still wet, it looked pretty bad! the trim and house colors didn't have enough contrast so kim and i agreed that it had actually looked better before we started on it. =\ the above photo i actually took when we went back for our second project. i was surprised the colors really turned out so differently once the paint dried.

4/21/12 mckenna at our 2nd house

our 2nd project was a really hot day. debbie, mckenna, sally and i went (no kim this time). the ladies wanted to go gardening and they did an amazing job clearing up the backyard. i painted cause i hate spiders. :( we realized tho that both our houses were on the same street. that's kind of strange. especially strange because the area is so nice! when we thought of volunteering in compton we were thinking like... well, you know what we were thinking. but these houses were pretty nice to begin with! turns out that seacoast grace is partnered with a local church in compton. so when volunteering thru seacoast, our houses will always be in the same area. compton initiative itself rotates it's serving area for every project (4 districts total for 4 project a year).

5/12/12 serve day with ting

this school was a totally different project that ting signed us up for thru her church, rock harbor, called serve day. we got to choose which project we wanted to do so we picked painting a mural at a middle school in costa mesa. when we showed up, that wall was pretty much blank. the prep team had already stenciled out the center part of the mural, but everything still needed to be painted. the T's were also filled in later. this project might be one of my favorites because the change was so dramatic and the mural really did turn out so well!

10/20/12 house #3

for my third compton initiative project we brought a big group: kim, debbie, mckenna, sally, ting, aj, and his two friends. the weather wasn't great (it drizzled all day) but it was fun nevertheless. only hitch was that aj and his friends ended up at the wrong house, haha! this house was actually actually really cool because there was less window work (our first house just about killed us with all the latticework!) and because the before and after colors were so different: from grey to blue. i later got a photo packet from compton initiative which featured this house, probably because the change was pretty dramatic.

for 2013 i'm trying to set up an scdbc event with compton initiative on their 1/19 work day. i may even train to become a lieutenant, tho no promises yet since their schedule conflicts with lb competition dates. either way, i'm really hoping for a strong showing. i think it would be really great since we already have such a large group of people who are dedicated to giving up their every weekend morning. it would also be a good opportunity to meet people from other teams. send good thoughts my way!