The "Build" April 30, 2011

by Bing Hadley

The CCOP Team traveled to San Diego on Friday as part of a group of 35 people from the East Bay, largely affiliated with St Augustine Church in Oakland.  Many brought friends from other churches, other faiths, and other nationalities; we looked like the United Nations!  In addition, we “adopted” three people from a church in Torrance (So Cal) since they wanted to be part of a build but didn’t have enough people to form their own group.  Fortunately, they had prior Corazón experience and made a HUGE contribution.

Our 4-vehicle convoy from Oakland departed Friday morning at 6AM and arrived in Chula Vista at 5PM after 3 stops that included driver changes, lunch, refueling, and some time for the teens to get some exercise on the beach in South Orange County (Doheny State Beach).  At one of the stops, one of our leaders Ferdinand Ramos took dinner meal requests and called in our order to a restaurant in Bonita near the hotel.  As a result, we showed up, were served within 10 minutes, and got in bed at a reasonable hour to prepare ourselves for a full day of construction.

On Saturday morning, we got up around 5AM to convene with other people building homes with Corazón at a nearby mall just north of the Mexican-American border.  There were at least 3 other projects scheduled for the same day in the general area of our build.  We circled up to review the game plan for our team.

About 60 minutes later, we were in Mexico with our vehicles parked on the side of a dirt road down the street from a local church.  Our build site was up the hill from the church; it had been difficult for the Corazón team to access this location to pour the concrete slab and deliver the materials.  The multiple walks up and down the hilly, wet, gravel road to retrieve tools and other necessities were a reminder of the many conveniences we all have at home.  After a build-briefing, the work began in earnest.

As it turns out, our group (led by Walt Sears) has made this trip 8 times in successive years and has developed a reputation with the Corazón team for diligent, humble teamwork.  As a result, about 8 Corazón regulars joined our build since it is always an uplifting experience.  After speaking with some of the ‘Regulars’ during our build, I came to understand how special our group is.  Everyone had the smiling, ready-to-pitch-in attitude no matter the task; I saw everyone do whatever they were asked and whatever it took to get things done.  Most jobs are rather menial: moving materials to the right place, retrieving a tool for someone, swinging a paintbrush or hammer, etc.  It was like a congenial anthill with a common goal!

By lunch time, the 4 walls were up and the roof frame was in place.  Since the site was cramped and hilly, we used all available space on the road to stage our framing and painting.  Occasionally, we had to pick up the in-process frames to let cars pass.  Then, we had to get 10 people to move the roof frames about 50 yards and lift them into place!  It is rewarding and fun to work with your own children.

After a blessing over our food, Consuela and her family served us a hearty meal of rice, beans, cooked cactus, and tortillas; the food disappeared quickly into the hungry construction crew!

Over the lunch hour, the leader of Corazón, shared an in-depth and vulnerable overview of the history and mission of Corazón.  It struck us how important this work is; they started in 1978 in an attempt to get people in Mexico out of the dirt.  Their mission grew to include building interdependent communities that engaged in learning English and jobs skills, helping others in need around them.  Corazón gets the attention and funding from people in the US from the home builds.  However, after hitting a high of 90 homes in 2007, the number has dropped to 25 in recent years due to Americans’ concerns about the drug violence in Mexico.  Thus, their funding has proportionally dwindled, making it harder to continue this critical mission.  Our own parish at home, the Catholic Community of Pleasanton, used to participate before the violence.  This gave us Pleasantonians more resolve to reestablish this effort in our community this year.  What a great family event this would be, especially if we were to combine efforts with our new friends from Oakland on a super-build day!

We worked feverishly in the afternoon as we felt the day racing by and realized that we still had much work to complete.  Greg and I were on the roof laying shingles most of this time. 

Near the end, I went down to get more shingles and realized that the painting crew had finished the inside and outside in record time while we were up ‘top’!  The place looked great.

At 5PM, we handed Consuela the keys to her new home; she was in tears!

This program not only teaches the values of generosity and hard work to our children (as well as appreciation for what we have), it gives hardworking people a hand UP instead of a hand out.  If you ever have the chance to participate in a build again (as a volunteer or a donor), I highly recommend it.  This is the best in people truly helping people in a simple way that matters the most. Visit the Corazón Web Site

Next build, April 14, 2012.