My daughter’s birthday always falls around the MLK holiday weekend. Over the last several years, this holiday has become a day of service around the Birmingham area. So, this year, as Emma anticipated turning seventeen, she decided to have a group of friends get together for a service project. After some research, she selected Habitat for Humanity, which is building a brand new home for the Williams family, within only blocks of where her dad grew up. The girls all came over the night before for regular birthday festivities – cake, presents, and such – and were less than bright-eyed at 630 this morning! But they all got moving and we were the first group at the jobsite at 730.
We’ve had so much rain in Birmingham, lately, that the build progress had been delayed. Although we all thought we’d be framing walls, we arrived to find a muddy site with only the foundation walls in place. It was a cold, clear morning, and we huddled together as other volunteers continued to stream in, including the Williams family themselves. We took to hand as many shovels, rakes, and gloves as were available. We moved cement blocks, shoveled mud, cleared debris, leveled the plot and toted and stacked lots of lumber! We had a great time working alongside so many others from all around the city. The girls did a fabulous job. There was not one wimper, sigh, or complaint. They wanted to do more, lift more, dig lower. They were even disappointed when the morning ended, but our work was done. We left the jobsite prepared for the next crew to start setting capblocks on the block wall foundation.
Just before we left, the job foreman gathered the crowd to express his thanks and then called Emma to the middle of the circle and led us all in a Happy Birthday serenade. What a fabulous day. All of us muddy, happy, and tired, standing on the sidewalk and singing. I couldn’t help feeling a little unworthy at the end of the day – I had received many more gifts this day than I had given.
Susan Clark, Employee Development
