Appalachia Home Building | 2020 Project

Thank You!

On behalf of the Knights of Columbus, the Appalachian Construction Crew of Omaha, NE, and the Marler family, we want to thank the Nativity family for their tremendous outpouring of support that made this home building effort possible. With the combined donations from Nativity, the Knights, and personal donations, our contributions totaled over $80,000, not including a truck load of household items provided by the Nativity family. With slightly over $10,000 raised from Omaha, the combined crews were able to again build a home for a very needy family. Good Shepherd Chapel selected the family. The Marler family clearly had some challenges. The family had a combined income of around $20,000 and lived in a trailer with significant mold and rotting floors. This was the 22nd home where Nativity and the Knights partnered with the Appalachian Construction Crew. With the COVID crisis, we faced significant challenges. Originally scheduled for early June, we had to re-schedule the build to mid-September based on Kentucky guidelines. We had significant protocols in place with daily temperature checks, voluntary masking while indoors, and restricted outdoor activities for the safety of the crew. With our smallest crew in recent years from all of our volunteer groups, we had two weeks to complete the build. From September 16-29, the combined crews were able to complete the home with two of those days dedicated to travel. The Nativity crew was composed of 16 knights; Omaha sponsored 9 that included a support crew to help with feeding the Crew. With reduced daylight, the normal 12hr workday was reduced to 10hrs, but the weather cooperated allowing us to complete the build on time. Local electrical, heating/air conditioning, and plumbing contractors worked at night to ensure the home was ready for critical inspections. Early Tuesday, we completed hanging all the sheetrock and applied the first coat on most of the joints, and cleaned up the site for the house blessing. Literally, we completed all this work, exterior construction and interior rough-in, in 5 ½ days. We had the house blessing on Tuesday afternoon led by both Father Danny of Kentucky and our own Father Vaccaro who came down a day earlier to participate in the build. Due to COVID, we presented the keys to the family at the house blessing and told them of all the household items that we brought from Nativity rather than present the items at our normal family dinner. The family was overwhelmed with the outpouring of help and the caring from the Nativity family.

On Wednesday morning, the first crew departed and the finishing crew took over. From Wednesday thru Monday, our finishing crew of five, with Omaha’s two, stayed to do all the finishing. The finishing team completed all the drywall finishing, painting, hanging doors, trimming, and installing kitchen cabinets. The finishing crew left on Tuesday. The family is planning to move in by mid-Oct.

May God bless you all for your caring and generosity. Please call Bob Corsi at 703-239-2890 for any questions.

Family Testimony

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