Taylorsville residents happy to help rebuild home
Allen Jenkins probably could have been golfing. And Debbie Harper most likely had a long to-do list of things that should've happened yesterday.
But all of them — along with hundreds of other volunteers — couldn't think of anywhere they'd rather be Monday than in Taylorsville, building a home and reaching out to a community that will never be the same.
"It's contagious," Mayor Russ Wall said. "Compassionate service becomes contagious, and people are catching that and we're very pleased by that. I'd like to see that this project prompts other people to look inside themselves and say, 'What can I do for my neighbors?'"
The compassionate bug started biting Taylorsville residents last week, when Heart2Home, a charitable organization that renovates homes for needy families in extremely short periods of time, bulldozed the Groves family home. The Groves children have a multitude of health problems which were exacerbated by mold in the home, and the family was forced to move in with relatives to give their children a better environment.
Heart2Home, Foote Homes, Wish To Reality and hundreds of other volunteers have stepped in to completely rebuild the Groves' house from the basement to the attic in nine days. The family will return on Wednesday night to their new home.
Leavitt held a stack of papers with more than 20 different groups of people, some of whom were hand-picked by the mayor, who needed help. He dispatched teams of volunteers to build fences, pick up trash, tile bathrooms and carpet living rooms for other people in the community who needed help.
Leavitt, who lives a few houses away from the Groves, took 10 days off work to help with the project, and thus became a volunteer coordinator.
"We'll help those we can," Leavitt said. "We'll start at one end and see how far we can go."
Harper spent much of her Monday morning in the Taylorsville recreation center, where Real Salt Lake, Sonic and Chick-Fil-A gave away free food. There were tables of sandwiches and lines of kids waiting to get their faces painted, not to mention the balloon animals that kept magically appearing before everyone's eyes.
"They're very surprised it's all free," Harper said. "I think everyone was panicked, thinking their neighborhood would be torn up, and they're so surprised to see this happen."
Meanwhile, Jenkins — an electrician from Minnesota who's vacationing in Utah for a couple of weeks — was taking a lunch break under a tree, getting ready to get back to work on the house. Jenkins doesn't think it's at all odd that he, a 62-year-old, would choose to spend his vacation helping a family he's never met while his wife plays with the grandkids.
It's even less strange for Jenkins to spend his time this way because he knows everyone else is a volunteer, too.
"I just feel that everybody, when they have the spare time, rather than sitting at home and watching a baseball game, they could be helping out and making a difference in someone's life," Jenkins said. "To me, I would much, much rather be doing this than on a fishing boat or a golf course or anything like that."
E-mail: achoate@desnews.com
Recent comments
A million thanks to all those in the community that have helped us...
Patrick Perrett | March 26, 2008 at 12:19 a.m.
I hope that when building the new home the same mistakes are not...
Mr. J. | March 25, 2008 at 9:50 a.m.
I THINK IT IS JUST WONDERFUL THE WAY EVERYONE CAME TOGETHER TO HELP...
ADDIE STOWERS | March 25, 2008 at 4:35 a.m.
