Volunteering=Euphoria

Volunteering produces a euphoria beyond any synthetic stimulant grown or manufactured...

Yesterday morning we kicked off the framing and wall raising of a Habitat for Humanity home. I've never been involved with a wall raising. My husband and I build various items at home, and I love to build, but this was different--emotionally different. The wall raising ceremony, after hammering for two hours and helping build numerous walls, brought tears to my eyes. I don't know if anyone else cried, but I did.

My family to the left of the homeowner, Hope, who told us, "A family that hammers together, stays together." We worked on the house behind us last month and the owners now live there.

Then it was back to work. We framed more walls and raised more walls, and by noon, all the walls were up. We left at lunch time, but now the exterior walls are up and the house is beginning to look like a house... in one day!

Habitat is such a wonderful program. Even if you've never held a hammer before, there's something you can do along the way to help a deserving family afford to buy a new home. And they do buy them. After volunteering 300 hours to other Habitat homes, they buy them with a no interest mortgage. I tell my readers this because I didn't know this until I started volunteering for Habitat.

Volunteering leaves behind a sense of accomplishment that no other activity provides. I can't wait to start painting!