Volunteer City, USA...#2 Anway

A recent article proclaims portland to be the second-most generous city in the country, when it comes to volunteer hours. I'm proud to see this kind of action in my community.

http://portlandtribune.com/news/story.php?story_id=132874365097508600

Hour 15 - ACE Mentoring: Building Exteriors & Cost Estimating

First things first, SORRY NO PICTURES TODAY. I forgot my camera tonight, but I promise future blogs to be packed with even more exciting photography than usual. And if you are lucky, there will more of me shoveling.

For tonight's ACE session we met at one of the architect mentor's office in the Old Town part of Portland. Craig walked us around the corner to take a look at a job his company had designed. The 3 story building was under construction but will one day serve as soup kitchen for the homeless, with residential units in the upper levels. He talked to the students about all that stuff architects do. When we got back to the office, two of the engineer mentors (Hobbie & Kenny), talked about cost estimating. We then did a rough estimate of what elements the cafe's budget could handle. At one point we ran over budget and had to go with some less expensive furniture for the customer seating. At the end of this weeks meeting, the architects led an intial design on what the exterior of the coffee shop will look like. It was interesting to see certain students gravitate towards this kind of achitectual related design and others show more interest in the cost estimating, which is more engineering/construction related. They were given pizza (again) and the homework of cutting out photos of interior themes that they wanted to see in their cafe.

Hour 9 - Habitat for Humanity on NE Morgan

How's my form?

An early Saturday wake up call and I was on my way up to north east Portland to help Habitat for Humanity with the construction of a multi-family house. In Portland, HFH projects are not easy to get on, especially on the weekends. Today there were 8 volunteers and 2 HFH employees who were managing the project. Thomas, of HFH, first explained to us how the organization operates. They purchase properties and when the value of the property has risen to a certain value they will build energy efficient, multi-family homes. I was suprised to learn that they actualy sell the homes, at cost, to those in need ('those making ~1/3 of the median income'). They also provide interest free mortgages to the buyers. Additonaly they require 500 hours of service in the year of purchase from the buyers - this amounts to helping every Saturday for one year. I think this kind of 'sweat equity' would lend to an added sense of ownership for the benefactors. The house we were working has 2 floors. One floor has four bedrooms and would house a family of 9, and the other would be home to a mother and her 4 boys.

With inroductions out of the way, we got to work. Jeanna and I raised our hands to fill in a utility trench along the back of the house. I happy for the for a chance to get the blood moving in the chill of the morning. My new friend, Jeanne, turned out to be a fellow civil engineering, quasi-Spanish speaking, rock climbing, SE Portland resident - a tight niche. With brain and braun we filled in and compacted that trench as only 2 engineers can. Afterwards we got on to painting the exterior of the house. In good fortune, we had blue skies and sunny skies to work outdoors in. Other volunteers spent the afternoon painting interior doors and door frames. Today was more work than I'm used to on a Saturday, but it was great to be out in the sun, helping the affordable housing cause along side some new friends. If there are any readers out there, they will be seeing more of Habitat for Humanity in future blog entries.

Jeanne, and company, knockin out some trim

Hour 7- ACE Mentoring: BC Talks & More Floorplan Development

Brainstorm Sesh

This week at ACE, we heard from the first of our mentors...Me! I talked to the students about the work that I do as a civil engineer & how it relates to their ongoing project of designing a coffee shop. Earthwork, utilities, and stormwater drainage. Extremely interesting stuff! We also had a guest mentor stop in to talk about landscape architecture. Slightly less interesting stuff! It became apparent to me during my presentation that when explaining something that we spend every day doing it may seem simple to us, but can easily be confusing to someone on the outside. My challenge was to simplify and make this stuff relatable to young people who are getting in at the ground level.

Afterwards the students broke up into 2 teams. Each team developed a floor plan and presented it to the rest of the team. While each team presented their plan, we talked about the ideas and continued to improve what the teams put together. Ideas like a patio garden, how customer seating would be laid out and the overall flow of the cafe were discussed. The cafe's floorplan was starting to become a product of the students.

Hour 5 - ACE Mentoring: Floor Plan Layout for the Coffee Shop

Tonight was the 2nd ACE meeting of the year. Some of the architect mentors explained 'bubble diagrams' to the students and the group created one for the coffee shop. The mentors then provided the students with a an archectual drawing of the site in whcih the coffee shop will go. The (theoretical) shop will sit between a pedestrian path and a light rail line, along the Willamette River here in Portland. Once the bubble diagram was complete, the team went to work on the floor plan layout; deciding what will go where. The customer seating area, bathrooms, the office and roasting room were all located somewhere within the building footprint. For the most part, the students were able to talk through the decision process but every so often a mentor would pose a question or idea in order to move the discussion along in a productive direction. This week we gave the the kids homework; go to your local coffee shop. Next week tell us what you like/disliked about the cafe.

The Coffee Shop...what, you couldn't tell?

Hour 3 - Blueberry Bushes for NAYA

Dr Martin Luther King Jr fought for equality, justice, and what he called 'the beloved community'. In the last 10 years, the MLK holiday has been paired up with volunteerism- presented as an oppurtunity for citizens to take action for the betterment of others.

This MLK weekend I signed up, by way of Hands on Greater Portland, to plant blueberry bushes for an organization called NAYA (Native American Youth and Family Center). NAYA operates a school and community center in NE Portland. They provide numerous services for youth, adult and senior Native Americans. For 30 years NAYA has 'provided educational services, cultural arts programming, and direct support to reduce poverty' for Portland's Native Americans. NAYA elders had requested blueberry plants that they could harvest in the Summer and use in baking. Nine other volunters, and myself, made up the group tasked with planting the bushes and building a temporary greenhouse to help the plants get through the Portland winter. The 10 of us varied in every way - size, color, and age. As the project came along each volunteer proved helpful in some unique way. In the two hours it rained & snowed and in the end the sun came out to see a dozen blueberry bushes and a makeshift greenhouse behind the NAYA run school.

Blueberry planting in January? Well, we did it. I was glad to learn about NAYA and show my support for the organization, whose efforts parallel the lasting legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.

'This is how we do it!'

As an update to this entry: I later received an email from United Way-Portland, who organized the city-wide MLK Day volunteer effort. They said that 2,875 volunteers, gave 10,346 hours of community service over the 3 day weekend. Not too shabby.

Hour 1 - ACE Mentoring: Meet 'n Greet

Tonight was the first meeting of the 2012 ACE mentoring season, which I'll be taking part in. ACE is a national mentoring program focused on getting highschool students involved and familiar with engineering, architecture and construction management through mentoring. 2012 will be the Portland chapter's 5th year, and by far it's largest in terms of particpation - 91 students and 64 mentors in total. The students are placed on teams and paired up with mentors (local professionals working in the different fields) and given a project to design - this year our team will prepare the design of a coffee shop. We will meet 12 times in the next 5 months, each session focusing on a different element of project design. The ACE year will conclude in May, when the students will present their project to the other ACE teams.

Tonight the students and mentors met their fellow teamates and got a chance to walk the site where the proposed projects will go. 'The site' is along the Willamette River, across from downtown Portland, in an area called the Innovation Quadrant. As a civil engineer, it's encouraging to meet and work with kids who are genuinely interested in learning about the profession. It's also encouraging to meet the fellow mentors, who are also wanting to foster that kind of interest from students. I'm looking forward to sharing my experience with the students, but also learning from them & the other mentors.

Let's build us a coffee shop, kids.