Trip #11: Day 1

Today during the Building Construction Cares trip of 2016 in Crisfield, Maryland, our group sat down with Ben and Gordon, part of the United Methodist Disaster Response Peninsula Delaware Conference, and talked about four possible projects and went to look at all of them. We decided to work on a handicap ramp and the first of several roofing projects.

Mr. Carroll was the supervisor for the handicap ramp. He had six workers, five from Carpentry and one from Building Construction Technology. Seniors, Brad Mowers, Aindrea Shuller, Noah Gainor, and Juniors, Devon White, Michael Barowski, and Laurel Musser. This group started out with just an idea and almost no experience whatsoever and six hours later, they finished almost half of it.

They are building the ramp for an older couple. The ramp is for the wife who was diagnosed with ALS. Laurel was the only student that went into the house and talked to Mrs. Ashby. Laurel said that she is showing early signs and she’s starting to slowly lose motion in her arms and legs. Laurel also said Mrs. Ashby is beginning to have trouble talking. Mrs. Ashby thanked the group multiple times. She was so happy that they were doing this for her.

Mr. Brightbill was the supervisor for the roof project. He had ten students. Six Seniors, three Juniors, and one Sophomore were in his group. The first thing they did on the job was tear up the shingles that were on before. After ripping the shingles off, they put down ice guard. Ice guard helps keep rain out from getting under the shingles and getting through to the plywood. They had to replace some parts of the plywood roof. Water had gotten through throughout the years and it had started to rot away. Seniors, Nate Florence, Josh Negron, John Williamson, and Ryan Dickson started the drip edge from the bottom-up then everyone started working on the shingles. From having to tear stuff off and then start over during their six hours of work, they got about a quarter to a half of the way done.

After dinner, they took a little trip down to dock to watch the sunset. We believe the pictures speak for themselves.