Maya McFadden Photo
Yousufu Sheriff and Mikiri Sheriff.
Hill residents Yousufu and Mikiri Sheriff received a helping hand from the Neighborhood Housing Services (NHS) to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. Day with a community service project of fixing up the family’s basement.
On Sunday evening Yousufu received a last-minute call from Stephen Cremin-Endes, NHS director of community building & organizing, who offered to lend a helping hand from the nonprofit housing builder and Milone & MacBroom civil engineers and landscape architects.
The volunteer team of 15 began working at 9 a.m to help the Sheriff family clear out and repaint the basement of the 25 Stevens St. home.
“I haven’t seen the floor in years,” Yousufu said.
In the backyard, the team organized a dozen bags of clothing and piles of household items to be donated.
Yousufu and his wife have been collecting used clothing items and school supplies since 1989 to send to families who have recently left refugee camps in Liberia, Guinea, and Sierra Leone.
The clothing items packaged in a 75-gallon barrel to be shipped off included brand-new or lightly used notebooks to help provide the families in need with school supplies. NHS will work with the Sheriffs to raise money for the barrels (about $45 each) and shipping costs (about $150 each).
The refugee experience is something Yousufu has lived through. “Since I got here, I have been doing whatever I need to, to be able to send these items to those in need,” he said.
Yousufu met Cremin-Endes about a year ago when NHS took on its current rehab project, 29 Stevens St. one house down from the Sheriffs. The house at 29 Stevens St. is the agency’s sixth project on the street, which includes rehabbing old homes then selling them to new homeowners. Yousufu asked Cremin-Endes for help to repair the roof of his home.
The Sheriff family bought the home in 1985. At the moment, the front of the roof is sealed with a thin tarp. The hope is to receive funding to repair the roof before the winter weather worsens, Yousufu said.
Yousufu applied for a $10,000 loan from NHS’s small loan fund. If approved, the loan will be used to pay for other minor home repairs and the roof. The Sheriff family should hear back in 30 days, said Cremin-Endes.
The volunteer team.
“We are working with this community to stabilize the neighborhood,” Cremin-Endes said.
Before becoming the president of the NHS Board of Directors, Leslie Radcliffe went through the NHS first-time buyers program. With the help of NHS workshops, in 2008, Radcliffe purchased her first home near Truman Street and King Place, which was built by the Yale School of Architecture. Before purchasing, Radcliffe took credit building, homebuyer education, and resident leadership classes hosted by NHS. Radcliffe has worked with NHS for nearly 20 years now.
The NHS leadership training helped Radcliffe and fellow board member Doreen Abubakas take their first steps towards developing ideas for their communities. Both Radcliffe and Abubakas attended the service day to help out and show their support for their neighbors.
The cleanup helped to make the basement more usable for the Sheriff family.
The final donation piles after the cleanup.