Kat has been coming to Peace house Community for decades, so her desire to contribute to the community shouldn’t surprise anyone. But Kat does more than talk about how much she loves PHC; she puts her words into action.
This spring, Kat got tired of the graffiti and stains on the porch area, so she brought her handheld sander and started refreshing the woodwork. “It looked so ugly and dirty and icky,” she explains. By the time she finished, the railings around the porch had been sanded, stained, and varnished, and the columns got a new coat of paint. Kat estimates she worked for at least 30 hours on the project. “It took me about a month to get it all done. The sanding was the hardest part. My arms felt like rubber bands or spaghetti noodles.”
She followed that up by organizing a yard sale to raise money for plexiglass to partially enclose the porch in the winter. PHC has used plastic sheets to keep the wind off the porch during the last two winters, but it hasn’t been very effective. “I had to redo the plastic three times last winter,” she remembers. “I think the plexiglass will keep it warmer, and you won’t have to go through so much tape and plastic and staples.”
Kat believes the work she put into the yard sale was worth it. “It wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be because I had help from [volunteers] Deborah and Mary Robinson. Once we got it started, it went pretty fast. The yard sale itself was fun. It did a whole lot better than I thought it would.” Kat raised $282 for the plexiglass, but she isn’t finished yet. “My goal in the long run is to raise $1,000. I’m trying to think of other fundraisers but my mind is going real slow with the heat and humidity [today].” She adds that she has considered organizing a car wash or another yard sale in the fall.
Part of Kat’s enthusiasm comes from the other community members. “I got a lot of compliments from the community once I got [the porch] all sanded. They’re actually not putting graffiti on it now. Deep down inside everyone wants to keep it looking nice.”
Kat adds that she is not the only one contributing to PHC’s upkeep. “I’ve noticed that there’s a lot more people helping at the end of the day [to clean up and put supplies away],” she says. “I like to see that. If you see something that needs to be done, just do it. That’s what I did.”