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A friend of mine called me up and asked me if our family wanted to participate and go
build homes for the homeless in Tijuana. I loved working at the soup kitchen volunteering
so we jumped up and said yup absolutely weíll go. Well itís hard to describe itís really
impossible to describe with words there nothing like going down because we had such a good
time and such a good experience. We starting taking leaders down from our company to experience
this.
The idea came about that we might do it on a larger scale and invite our Associates from
across the country to come and join on a volunteer basis. They would give up two days of their
weekend and they would get two paid days and come down to Mexico and build houses for homeless
people.
I was really excited to do it as a company because It just open ups, anyone that goes
there, it just opens up their eyes to what poverty is like but in a really good healthy
way because they get to be a part of making someone life better and giving them a real
future and hope. It impacts their children, their ability to go to school, it impacts
their general health in so many positive ways. In a short period of time you make such a
huge impact, I was excited to see the company was going to step up and send its employees
down. Weíve invited other companies to do the same and other companies have done the
same.
Why would we go to Mexico to build? Well we could go anywhere, for sure but Mexico is
a beautiful project because Youth With A Mission, is a Christian group I have worked with, I
have been down nine times already but they know how to organize so we show up and I know
my people will be well fed, well cared for, well taken care of. Transportation and vehicles
that I trust and they have preselected a family we can work with so for me the trips to Mexico
are about inspiring my team to see a way they can change the world.
I have grabbed my flyers on the way out and drive my son to work and I was in the car
warming it and then I decided to read it. You know half the time you decide to toss
them out and when I started reading about volunteering I thought ìOh cool, Boardwalk
does things like thisî but when I saw it was an actual application, like a flyer saying
hey if youíre interested volunteering, I was shocked, you know who does that?
Just the feeling you get it is absolutely amazing just to come out and do this you always
know that there are people out there that need this help but you see it on TV but when
you get here it is so surreal.
Homes of Hope was started to meet a need. In Mexico , there is 100 million people, approx.
50 percent of the population of Mexico are considered impoverished. 50 percent of those
are in poverty meaning they donít have enough income to adaquelty take care of their own
families.
They have put rocks and a tarp on their house because the water was coming in so much on
them.
Seven people are living in here right now. His mom, his dadÖoh there is six and the
dog and the cat.
So my mom, my dad and my little sister sleep here and then him and his brother sleep here.
We have a lot of false assumptions about poverty. Sometimes people think people are poor because
they are lazy or people are poor because of this or that and one of the best definitions
of poverty that I have ever heard was that poverty is the lack of options. When you are
poor you donít have lots of choices.
We really
search the poorest of the poorest for help, there is an interview process before the family
receives the home. We want to make sure the family owns their land, so at no point someone
can come and their home away from them. So one of the requirements is to make sure the
family owns their own land or has been making payments on their land and are not behind
on their payments. They have to have at least two kids and have to make under $80-$100 a
week to qualify for a home.
Before they received their Homes of Hope home they were living in this little one room shack
right here. With their front door right on the road so when the cars pass or if anyone
passes by they were just open to whatever what was going on in the community and they
received their Hopes of Hope house. They received their Homes of Hope house there and they were
able to put it back there off the road so they have an area for their kids to play.
To have a little garden and also now they have connected onto. Inside there is a bathroom
and a kitchen in this area and they keep their bedrooms safe inside the Homes of Hope House.
I am a part of the program that we do here that involves community development, discipleship,
and after school tutoring with the children. So I have the joy of following up with a lot
of the families that have received homes some from Boardwalk. I can see a great change in
this community as a whole the more and more homes that get build here.
Thereís a lot of benefits when we give a family a home that goes pass the compassion
and emotion that we feel when we hand them the keys. What we give to the families in
one weekend would take them seven to ten years to replicate on their own depending on their
economic level.
Ok so they are celebrating two years of having their house built, it was built on their oldest
daughterís birthday. So now itís her birthday again so they are having a little party celebrating
her birthday and celebrating the anniversary of their new house.
Children who come back to a home to the family owns are three times more likely to stay in
school. When a family comes back to a home changes the mindset of the parents, the parents
think long term instead of short term and whenever you can get a poor family to think
long term rather than short term you can break the cycle of poverty in one generation through
Homes of Hope by helping the family think differently implicationally about the future.
When a group of people come all the way from Canada and actually demonstrate, Hey we love
you, we care about you, want to be here, we want to bless you, we want to help you that
has a tremendous spiritual impact on the familyís life.
I would say it is a humbling experience for us, it is the first time we are able to see
the living standard is such a big gap between the two countries. For us to do a tiny bit,
to build one house, it is really a humbling experience for the whole team.
We are building a sixteen by twenty house with three rooms, two of them are going to
be bedrooms and one of them is going to be a living room and kitchen. We a putting furniture
kit with two bunk beds with their mattresses and bedding, a table with four chairs and
some dishes and a stove. We also take them shopping and buy some supplies for them as
well.
She said one year later they came back to see how she was living, how the house was
and they bought her paint to touch up. And they brought her to go shopping and she was
able to have a lot of good fun. Clothes, dining room table because before she was living in
a house with one bed with her three daughters and her husband. I cried that day like never
before, her husband has never tried and that time he was a mess. Her old house used to
get wet all over, and now she has expanded her house a little bit in the front and back.
Hey youíre getting a house too right?
Bye!
That was awesome
So before I
have always lived with different family members, first my family was living with my husbandís
family. Then we were living with my mom for a small time and I am really happy now because were a family
thatís going to have something that is our own. Iím really thankful because I have always
had the support of my family, a place to live with them. But when we were able to get our
own land I was also really happy but is was also difficult to start without anything.
To start to have something that is our own here. Now that we can start to have our own
house itís going to be easier to keep going and Iím really happy and so thankful.
Howís the house coming along today?
Pretty good, much better than yesterday
Yeah?
I mean uh, a half hour from now we should have the four walls up and if everything goes
well around one oíclock this afternoon the roof should be all completed ready to put
the singles should be on. Itís going pretty well.
We have so many that come down and want to build a house and they come with such a beautiful
attitude of servant hood that they want to go and bless the families their building for
but what they donít realize is that they leave feeling so full of joy and blessed themselves.
We have our dedication and they see how moved the families are that they are receiving something
that they could have never really gotten on their own. Iíve seen grown men brought to
tears by the emotion of that great gift we are giving over to them.
Here are the keys to your new house and we are going to pass them around the circle and
we are all going to say something about building a house for you.
I am so happy I came, you are a beautiful family, itís just been really really fun
and I am so happy to be here Thank you for the opportunity to build this
house for you, itís been a great pleasure and itís been great to meet you guys and
I wish you many years of happiness in this house. I am so happy that I was able to come
and meet you and be a part of this and I just want you to remember your home is a home that
love built.
You know, you walk around the office and people say ìoh youíre going for the first time?î
and itís so cool and itís going to chance you. And you say oh yeah great, itís just
wordsÖsure, sure but until you get here honest to god I really had no idea. Itís actually
overwhelming is some ways, itís overwhelming in the simplicity of what we are doing but
the huge impact such as a simple act from a few can serve, thatís what I am finding.
On the Friday night, Shaun from the mission said that when you give you receive and thatís
fantastic, those are great words and I carried on with my dinner and never gave it a lot
of thought to be honest with you but I feel that not just received but have stolen from
people, I feel so good about what we have done. I mean for the two days we are working,
were working hard, doing some cool stuff but in no way compares to what I feel have gotten
back. I feel like I have cheated somehow and haven gotten something so cool for so little
from my perspective. I have so much and for me to come here for two days I just really
feel , I feel like Iím in on a big secret here that other people should know about.
If the truth is known that most of us think about our own lives a lot about what weíre
concerned about and when we actually take the time to think about another family, come
down swing a hammer, paint, thatís the other thing about Homes Of Hope, everybody can do
it. We have eight year olds to eighty year olds that can come and participate. Weíve
got painting, drywall, cutting, and nailing and stuff that everyone can do. You donít
need to be an expert, you donít need to be a builder to be a part of Homes of Hope. As
we give out it actually recalibrates us and we sort of become human again.
Ok so the mom is not here right now.
Hi!
So why did you want to come back and see these guys?
Because, Because they are just so sweet. Every time we build, the kids are just so sweet
and you get to know the family and spend time and the little boy was just so sweet and uh
I justÖ.I just love them. It was really sweet.
So before when they lived in another party and everyone was located here, their house
burned down. And her little sister was inside and she was just a little baby and our house
burned down and we didnít have anything. We didnít have anything, we didnít have
any money, a car, or a house or anything.
I think it helps your remember what is important in life. You know the basics. You know fresh
air, sunlight and donít take things for granted as we do back home, we do, we take so much
for granted. We donít realize how much we have that we waste and you know cuz we always
want more you know. We want to provide more, we want to give more but it is always we are
caught up on the wrong things I find. Just the basic necessities of life we need to learn
to appreciate again. Just stop, smell the fresh air, look at beautiful flower, you know,
just little things like that. Those are the important things.
It is always a positive spinoff that in our team participating in something like this
it is a renewal to get more engaged in local community. There is lots of opportunities
to give back and to serve in our local communities and this really reinvigorates the importance
of that and encourages everyone to look around the local community and ask what can I be
doing in my local community that can help build up the entire community.
Hi there
Hello,
How are you today?
Good thanks, How are you?
Iím doing very well thank you, letís go right on in.
After our trip to Tijuana we wanted to continue to do things like this. Therefore we have
arranged to go to the Ukraine to be working in an orphanage in a city called Novovolynsk.
Weíll be there for 10 days, weíll also be delivering food hampers into the mountains
in the Carpathians on the west side of the country. When I lived in the Ukraine we had
packages sent from people from Canada I believe with things that we needed things that for
the kids. I know how much it helped our family to have people thousands of miles away to
do something for us.
I think more than excited, Iím probably just sad now because I know what to expect and
I know thatÖitís sadÖ.I know that I could have been one of those people that still live
there and many times my mom has said that if we havenít had left when we did see doesnít
know she would have feed all of us or be able to support us. It will be a nice experience
to be there and just to give back, I think it will be a very sad experience for me as
well.
Everybody has a part in serving others and getting involved in their community and everybody
has something to give and identifying that and sharing with the community and with those
in most need is really the most rewarding thing we can do.
I happen to believe that philanthropy is good business. So I take no shame in people saying
ìJust a minute, your trying to combine business and charity?î you know what? Thatís the
way the business world works, why hide it? Letís just put it there and do it.
I think you can have a significant effect because also you set an example for your people,
youíve got a responsibility to not just say ìplease work hard and make money for me as
the principle share holderî. please go ahead thatís why we are hiring you and thatís
your job but take it far beyond that, we are going to make money as a company, we can do
the best we can, were going to do it for the value of our clients and really make an impact.
Oh by the way some of the fruits of doing the right thing can be used to help the lives
others.
It has helped our company in every aspect, int that the most important thing about a
company is people and great people have great leaders and great servants and we believe
that being a great leader you have to be a great servant, and we love the servant model
and when we serve one another miracles and amazing things happen. That really is team
work at its best and teamwork is a part of our core values. We try to live it every day
and we do amazing things with teamwork as we could never do as individuals.
I work for a few companies in my life, like many of us have and I have been on a variety
of team building exercises and so on, some are good and some arenít so good. If one
were to view this as strictly as a team building exercise, which itís not, itís far far more
than but if one were to *** it on those terms, the chasm between this and the other
team building exercise I have been on is just so wide. To through everyone in a pile from
all walks of our company and the variety of employees we have is so board from senior
management executive to the important people look after and clean our buildings, for everyone
to be pulled together into one group and to single common goal, that house. There is nothing
really abstract about what we are doing, we are building that house, its abstract in a
sense that what it means in the long term for the family and communities. The goal to
build this house and for everyone to pull together and to achieve that goal with such
efficiency, Ferber and joy is not what I was expecting, I didnít think it would be so
cohesive and you know you have your rank, your position and city but when youíre in
this environment it evaporates and it doesnít matter who you are and what you do. Were a
group here to build this house for this family and thatís what weíre doing and thatís
what weíve done. Itís very hard to describe, itís very cool. I will go back much different
from when I came thatís safe to say. It sounds bit of a clichÈ but it is true in my case.
When people at the end of the day want to be a part of something, they want to help
contribute, they want to know that their work, their life mattered.
Whether it is paying it forward or simply inspiring other people to do what you are
doing, there are three things that everyone can do for charity: Time, money and I call
it creative application of time and money leadership. I think most businesses are very,
very capable of allocating a bit of time and money and therefore leadership to causes.
When we first got here and I have never met the mom, she came up to me and started to
cry and hugged me and said thank you, thank you. I was wondering why she was thanking
me because we havenít started, we hadnít lifted a tool, we hadnít done anything. I
thought about that the night we got back and we did one thingÖwe came. There is a lot
of poor here and they are all waiting. Can you come and help the poor?