HHS in North Carolina: Last Day Reflections

By Conner Lane, Eli Mure and Alex Schannuth

Today is Friday, the last day of our trip. Today we will be spending most of our time on the road back to Hermann. Since today isn’t very exciting we are going to reflect on yesterday.

Yesterday was a very exciting day in North Carolina. It was our last day of work--most of which was spent outside in the grueling heat which was then cooled off by a downpour for the ages.

At Shawn’s jobsite, we worked very hard all week. We started out by replacing a set of steps which were unusable for the transportation of people. The elderly man named Bill was very thrilled with his new stairs. We also replaced some sketchy boards on his deck which could have collapsed at any moment. Then the man’s water heater was down, which he explained was down for two months! Could you imagine having no hot water for two months? So we called Mr. Reliable Plumbing on the job for that. Shawn Lane fixed the sink in the bathroom, the water heater in a closet, and a drain line for another sink. He was thrilled when he figured out that he could go to the restroom in one bathroom and wash his hands in that same bathroom.

Then we pulled up carpet out of his kitchen (carpet in kitchen = bad idea), which we also replaced by a floating wooden floor. This was a very long process due to the nature of the floating floor. Each piece of a floating floor was individually tabbed in to place with tabs on the previous piece laid. Then we put trim in his kitchen which completed the beautiful look of the kitchen.

During that same time Preacher Man Mure (Eli) and Sparky Loehnig (Drew) were weed eating Bill’s yard. They also sanded the new stairs, and according to Sparky Loehnig, they were smoother than a baby’s bottom. Bill was outside dancing on them whenever we left and when it started to rain he told us that he was inside on his new floor dancing on that also. He was very appreciative of all of the work that was done throughout this week.

Then when the work day was over we went back to Hinton where we ate a great meal with our new North Carolina families. It was taco Thursday, and everybody got themselves some tacos. We also celebrated Chef Phillip’s birthday this day and we sung happy birthday until the cows came home.

After this a couple of us baseball players went to watch the Hayesville Yellow Jackets’ baseball team play. They are extremely good and we enjoyed every minute of the playoff atmosphere. They ended up losing four to nothing, and this loss ended their season’s run at a state championship. We got to talk to the people around there and almost all of them appreciated the work that Hinton was doing to improve the life there.

It was hard to say goodbye to the families that we worked so hard for this week. We all enjoyed helping somebody who is less fortunate. We loved to see their faces light up when they saw the work that was done in order to improve their quality of life. My personal favorite moment was when Bill said that he danced on his new flooring in his house. He absolutely loved the work that was done, as all of the other families did too.

We learned so much as a group this year in Hayesville. We learned about the great feelings that come from helping somebody that can’t help themselves due to their disabilities, age, or financial problems. We all hope to go and visit these families again to see how they are enjoying their new gifts. We would like to thank all of our sponsors that help finance this trip, because without these people we could not have done the work that we have done. We would also like to thank all of the chaperones that came along, including Scott Schannuth for his work in carpentry, Shawn Lane for his work in the plumbing, Allen Speckhals for driving us all the way there and his expertise in painting, and a special thank you to Terry Veith and Maribeth Dann for organizing this trip.