Air Conditioned -- Kitchenettes

On Friday we began a project that will keep teams busy for quite some time. Our destination was the Shady Rest MOTEL (Air Conditioned! Kitchenettes! No Vacancy). Once upon a time this was a riverside resort motel. It had long since been used as a "residential hotel" -- single rooms with a kitchenette for folks who can't afford anything fancier. There are fifteen units, so fifteen different families were rendered homeless at once.

The shady rest is on the (undesirable) north bank of the river. The south bank of the river is where the business district is. The south bank got sandbags to protect it from the flood. The north bank did not. I'll let you draw your own conclusions about that. It's reasonable to say that there is a certain amount of bitterness on the part of the residents of the north bank.

We got to make the human connection this time. Phyllis owns the Shady Rest and it is her livelihood. She needs to try to get back in business as soon as possible, but the task before her is both daunting and expensive. We got to have a good talk with Phyllis and to pray with her. Then we got to work. Much of the drywall had already been removed, but there is drywall behind the cabinets, sinks stoves, etc. that is not so easy to get to, especially for someone working on their own. So we set about removing the stoves, sinks, and counters, and then chipping through the drywall behind it.

We started by spreading out and working on a number of different rooms at once, but when Steve arrived he had us shift to a different strategy. As soon as one room is finished,Phyllis will be able to start renting that room out and generating some income. So we switched to focusing all our efforts on room 1 (well, room 1 and room 3, it would be way to crowded if we were all in one room. Maybe I'll tell you later why we couldn't work on room 2).

Honestly, we were all pretty exhausted by Friday, and the work was so daunting. We tried to get a lot done, but our energy had pretty well ebbed. When we were all spent, we headed off to Cold Stone Creamery for our well-deserved reward.