Community members walked Monday into a new Casa Otoñal, thanks to volunteer renovators like Chris Doraz (pictured drilling) who worked against the clock to make over the four-building campus during a restoration marathon.
Saturday’s marathon took place with help from 140 volunteers from St. Margaret’s Church in Madison wielding power drills, hand saws, and paint rollers at the Sylvan Avenue site of the Casa Oto√ɬ±al community center from 7 a.m. until evening. It was the big finale of a longer planning process. Back in the fall, Casa Oto√ɬ±al applied for an Americares Homefront grant and became eligible for the free makeover, for tight-budgeted not-for-profits in need of building repairs. In January, Casa leaders began meetings with their designated volunteer team from St. Margaret’s to match up their renovation wish-list with what the Madison project captains thought they could manage in one Americares Homefront Day push.
“We had to prioritize together. It takes a lot of planning to get it all done in one day,” said co-captain Bill Kochis. In Homefront Days past, Kochis’s volunteer group has pulled off repair of Columbus House and a camp in Durham, but still Casa Oto√ɬ±al’s was a tall order: a paint job and new “barn-board paneling” in the main building, new shelving units and a racking system for the adjacent “la casita” thrift store, more paint in the children’s center and the ESL classroom, and new computer work stations for the library area, to start.
Luckily, the 2,200 member St. Margaret’s community had a lot of volunteer hands to offer up. “We needed a big job. We would step on each other’s toes at a smaller site,” said Kochis, comparing his group to smaller ones from churches and corporations at work at different sites nationwide and helping constitute the estimated 9,000 Americares Homefront Day volunteers out there Saturday.
“We’re lucky to have a lot of professionals and a lot of different skill sets in our community,” said Paul Williams, Kochis’s co-captain. “We’ve got a couple of plumbers, electricians, and carpenters” to serve as directors for specific parts of the project, so captains didn’t have to waste any time “baby-sitting anybody.” With the professionals came donated materials to fill in where Americares supplies ended, and loaned tools, like a laser level to shoot a straight line around the main room to guide the paneling, and this table saw where Barry Stack (pictured at right) and Pat Healey ripped a board while volunteers from the next generation rested up for the afternoon.
Amateurs like Diane Shortt were every bit as busy, with tasks from trim-painting to mulch-spreading outside. “It’s been a great deal of fun,” said Gail Hanke, a volunteer landscaper Saturday with Blase Picone. After five hours of “fancying and dolling up” Casa Oto√ɬ±al yard plantings, “it’s great to feel like we’ve really accomplished something,” said Picone. The pair were among many veteran Homefront Day volunteers who have participated in multiple of the St. Margaret’s one-day projects over the past fourteen years.
Julie Sarro (pictured at right with Kathleen Diana-Reilly) has worked at least three already.
To feed the hungry volunteers were lunch-ladies for the day (from left) Colleen McCormick, Donna White, Joyce Rorke, Margaret Luecke and Adrianne Douggan. They thanked local businesses like Madison’s Dunkin’ Donuts that donated food for Saturday’s breakfast and lunch, and said thanks, also, for the generosity of Americares. No doubt the Sylvan Ave. Hill community with its spiffed-up Casa Otonal will give matching thanks that the St. Margaret’s group cares, too.