Editor’s note: This is the fifth in a series of stories that follow the progress of Habitat for Humanity of Miami and Shelby Counties’ first project in Shelby County.
JACKSON CENTER — As Habitat for Humanity of Miami and Shelby Counties has been building a house in Jackson Center, it has relied on two kinds of volunteers to get the job done.
Airstream, which has sponsored the project with an $80,000 donation, has also paid the salaries of its employees who opted to spend a day or two working on the house. Hoying and Hoying Builders Inc., based in Anna, and several subcontractors have paid some of their workers to assist, too.
Others are unpaid volunteers who have shown up to help either because they know the family who will own the house, Kara Mullen and her children, of Sidney, or because they enjoy participating in Habitat for Humanity projects.
Christine McKenzie, executive administrative assistant at Airstream, and Paul Hoying, president of Hoying and Hoying Builders Inc., also credited their suppliers and subcontractors for donating and/or discounting time and materials. Hoying and Hoying Office Manager Candie Stayton did a lot of the coordination of those efforts.
“She gets a big shout-out, as well,” Hoying said.
Tammy Spicer, at Airstream, was responsible for coordinating the schedules of Airstream employees who elected to join the Habitat crew.
“I tried to send people from different departments, hoping for a day per (person),” she said. That way, no department in the Airstream plant was shortchanged. Sometimes that worked and sometimes, it didn’t. People at the build were sometimes there for partial rather than full days. And if workers were in the middle of something in the Airstream plant, they would beg off in order to finish their jobs there.
“People would say, ‘Ask me tomorrow,’” Spicer added. In all, 77 Airstream employees spent time at the site. But as Spicer sees it, all 848 people on the firm’s payroll volunteered because those at the plant took up the slack in their departments for those who were gone.
Almost all of them worked outside their comfort zones at the house site.
“I’m a quality administrator. I do data base administration,” said Luke Doseck, of Jackson Center. He found himself pouring concrete for the Mullen house.
“The other two volunteers had experience with concrete. I did not. I learned new skills. I would (now) feel confident in pouring concrete at my new house,” Doseck said.
Stephanie Fisher, of Wapakoneta, spends her usual workdays installing curtains and blinds in Airstream trailers. At the Jackson Center build, she prepared the foundation and installed siding.
“I knew I wouldn’t be doing what I do here. That was nice, getting out of the routine for awhile. There was a gentleman there. (Siding installation) is what he does. He walked us through it. We all got together as a group and knocked it out,” she said.
A friend of Mullen, Seana Gibson, of Greenville, was there to put primer on interior walls and ready them for top coats of paint.
“I’m not very good at it,” the unpaid volunteer admitted. “Thank God it wasn’t the actual paint.”
A third Airstream employee had an easier time of it. Ryan Shuster, of Fort Loramie, did touch-up painting in the house, painted the garage door and put in towel bars and deadbolts at the house. That’s quite different from building exterior curbside walls, which is the work he does at the plant. He said there were no surprises during his shift at 107 Birch St.
“It went according to plan,” he said.
The teams worked so well together that at times, they completed tasks faster than planners anticipated.
“I was there during the initial start-up. We got ahead of schedule. Here, we’re used to working on a tight schedule. We go, go, go. We were running out of work,” Fisher said.
“We never run out of work at Airstream,” said McKenzie, of Sidney. She was responsible for taking lunch to the workers at the house each day.
“I was out there the second day, and after that, she took sunscreen, too,” laughed Doseck.
Hoying served as construction manager of the project. He and his employees have been overseeing Habitat builds for some 15 years; although he couldn’t quite remember how they became involved originally.
“Probably somebody called us or I saw something in the paper. This is our 40th year in business. We’ve done a lot of homes in the area. We wanted to help out, to pay back,” he said. This was the first time he had served as the overseer of a Habitat build. In the past, his staff has framed the houses and others then took over.
This was the sixth Habitat project for Hoying and Hoying job foremen Dave Dwenger, of St. Marys, and Chris Hoying, of McCartyville. They each put in two days on Birch Street, framing the house and hanging windows and doors. They also trained inexperienced volunteers.
Airstream employees didn’t need much training, though.
“They have a lot of skilled workers, so they were pretty knowledgeable,” Paul said. Dwenger concurred.
“Airstream had great people. They were great to work with and easy to teach,” he noted. The sponsor’s seemingly “unlimited supply” of workers, Paul said, kept the build going smoothly.
“Kara was really top-notch as well,” he said. “She did a lot of clean-up and all of the painting. If we needed a certain room done at a certain time, she was right on it.”
According to Gibson, Kara had help from her mother and other friends. The new owner’s presence was an inspiration to Chris.
“Kara came the first day. It brought tears to our eyes as soon as she pulled up,” he said.
The Airstream workers, too, said that assisting Habitat was a fulfilling experience. Shuster said he came away with “the pride of building a good house for a good cause. A good family is going to get it.”
Fisher appreciated the camaraderie she found among her fellow “Airstreamers.”
“This made me aware that this is a small town. Airstream feels like a big company — the effect Airstream has on the community. I feel proud to work here,” she said.
The employee-volunteers all said they’d like to do it again — even off the clock.
Fisher had just one suggestion — a question — for Habitat organizers: “Next time, can the house be bigger, so there’s more to do?”
