Today we worked on a house being finished by the Homestretch organization, which helps build houses for homeless families. Most of the work done today included painting the walls, ceilings, basebaords, and doing some minor cleanup of the windows and taking out the trash around the house. With an army of 14 people painting and whatnot, we nearly finished painting and cleaning the house within the span of 5 hours.

The second project we worked on today actually dealt with our current housing site. The City of Light church has been a very hospitable organization, and is still in the process of "moving in." We were fortunate to be able to give back to them by rearranging furniture, cleaning up the rooms, and taking out trash throughout the building. Just like at Homestretch, we ended up doing much more work than we had expected with our small, motivated army.

Today was a bit more immersive in the volunteering rather than yesterday. Working with Homestretch had more of a personal effect on me especially, because I was in a position earlier in life where I was nearly homeless. One of the project leaders had told us that Homestretch focuses on families that are victims of homelessness, which requires the family have at least one dependent (minor). The average age of a homeless person is 8, and that really put more things into perspective for me. I was about 9 when my family almost lost our home because of some medical issues. It really makes you realize that homeless isn't a result of doing a certain number of "bad things," like getting addicted to drugs or refusing to go to work. Sometimes all it takes is getting really sick and being unable to care for your family. Being able to work on a project that specifically focuses on families that have good intentions and have the will to succeed and be self-sustaining is very refreshing, because homeless gets a much worse reception by society than how it should.

Staying at the City of Light has been an absolute pleasure too. The folks here have been infinitely kind to us, and they really believe in the things that we're doing here. Their entire mission is to be all inclusive in their services, and it's very refreshing to meet others that share the same vision and values as you do.

We're all really tired, but we also started to bond more as we went through the services today. While we were painting a few people took turns playing music on their phone, and nearly everyone in the room we were painting were singing at the top of our lungs. It was like clockwork, but with a fun twist.

It really goes to show that no matter what you're doing, having hardworking, motivated, and genuinely selfless people to surround yourself with makes anything better.