This was our 8th year participating. We had 27 people show up on April 29, 2006, to work on a house in Bladensburg owned by a blind woman. We were teamed with a few Comcast employees. (Comcast had 'adopted' the house, meaning that the company paid for a few extra materials that Xmas in April (XiA) staff wouldn't normally have in their warehouse.) Wecertainly had our work cut out for ourselves!
One large group went to work cleaning out an overgrown backyard. They pulled up mountains of weeds, trimmed bushes, cut back hedges, raked, and hauled a lot of debris out to the front curb, including an old stockpile of useless and rusted trash from under the back deck. A patio was even uncovered in one corner of the backyard!
In order to start on the inside of the house, most everything except the biggest furniture was moved to the front yard. The homeowner took this opportunity to decide what to keep and what to throw out. The XiA trash truck made several trips to pickup the fast-accumulating discards out front. We did a lot of scrubbing -- wallpaper, woodwork, kitchen cabinets and ceilings -- but little painting, due to the mostly-covered wallpapered walls. The curtains, couch covers, blankets, pillows and other items were taken to the laundromat. Our carpenters hung two doors and worked on the back deck too. The floor in he kitchen (linoleum) was taken up and the bare wood retreated before being relaid with new linoleum.
Again, the homeowner was VERY happy with the results and thankful for all of the great help! There isn't room to list all the names, but thier contributions were many and marvelous!
