Et cetera : NCCC Oak 1 Helps Continue the Rebuilding Process of Detroit Post Flood

Hunter hammers sets for the furring strips to set in place the foam board

Jay & Cassidy screw in dry wall on furring strips to keep mold from growing.

By: April Mahaffey and Hunter Anderson

AmeriCorps NCCC team Oak 1 is serving with All Hands Volunteer and Mennonite Disaster Services in Detroit Michigan until August 4. The team is assisting with mucking and gutting, and rebuilding basements.

In two weeks the team has assisted with putting up foam boards, furring strips, draw wall and mudding and taping in the basement floor of one family’s home outside of downtown Detroit with All Hands. In the time span of one day, the team partnered up with Mennonite Disaster Service to muck and gut two basements by removing garbage and appliances. In addition, the group tore down drywall to remove water damage and black mold.

Cassidy Jorge of Oak 1, “I really like the service work we are doing, learning about drywall is the next step to building a home from what we learned on our previous project. The volunteers of All Hands are an amazing group and my stay in Detroit has been a great time.”

All Hands Volunteer was established in 2004 to aid with the recovery efforts from the Tsunami that impacted the Philippines. Since then, they have grown to thousands of members on standby and have close to 200 active members who are stationed in Dallas, Detroit, New York City, Philippines, Haiti and will start Zimbabwe in year 2016.

Volunteer Coordinator for All Hands Volunteer, Alexus Gordon says “I’m really enjoying serving with the NCCC team. It gives me a different outlook on the service lifestyle as a whole and has allowed me to appreciate everything that NCCC stands for.”