Using a rake, clippers and a pitch fork, a crew of three volunteers beat back a blackberry bush that had grown over part of a deck. The group quickly found out the unruly plant hadn’t grown about 5 feet tall like they had thought.
“Do you know you have a hot tub under here?” Jennifer Amsler said with a laugh to homeowner Karen McCallister.
Amsler and the two other volunteers worked on McCallister’s yard as part of A Brush with Kindness Week, a nationwide effort by Habitat for Humanity to transform neighborhoods through exterior home repairs, landscaping and yard cleanup.
Evergreen Habitat for Humanity partners with the Fruit Valley neighborhood for their Neighborhood Revitalization program with the goal of enhancing the quality of life for the west Vancouver neighbors.
“We are all about the homeowners,” said Heather Cochrun, outreach coordinator for Evergreen Habitat. “We want them to have pride in what they have, and we’re here to help them.”
So on Saturday, about 10 volunteers worked on the properties of three low-income families to do yard work and make various repairs.
McCallister said she and her late husband Lee McCallister, who was the president of the Fruit Valley Neighborhood Association for 21 years, used to do the yard work together.
“Even when he got sick, I tried to do things and he’d sit on the porch and watch,” she said.
But doctors appointments got in the way, she said, and the yard turned into a mess.
“I’m getting old, let’s face it,” McCallister said.
The volunteers also replaced the corrugated plastic part of McCallister’s front porch awning.
“I was getting really worried about that,” she said. “It was blowing away, flapping with the wind, and the squirrels were eating it.”
Jesse Lancaster, 33, of Troutdale worked on McCallister’s property after Amsler asked if he’d help out. He said his mom and sister live in low-income housing in Portland, so he understands McCallister’s situation.
“I help (my mom) out a lot,” he said. “I definitely can understand people that might not have kids to help out. … I’m a strapping young gentleman, and it’s fulfilling to give back to the community.”
Frank Bush, 86, says he does all of the outside work since his wife, Nadine Bush, was left disabled by strokes. In the past few years, he said, he’s fallen twice from a ladder.
So when he discovered the roof of his shed was letting water in, his neighbor suggested he go through Evergreen Habitat for the repairs.
“I’m accident prone,” Frank Bush said. “If there’s a way to get hurt, I’ll do it.”
Two volunteers helped the Bushes clean out the shed, sorting what they wanted to keep and save before getting to work on the roof.
Christi Tanberg, 36, was volunteering at the Bushes’ house as part of the “sweat equity” she is putting into the organization before getting her own house through Habitat for Humanity. Though she’s enjoyed working on her own house, she likes working on other people’s houses too.
“It’s awesome that we aren’t just focusing on our house,” she said. “It’s cool to help other people.”
