On Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2020, a group of seven student members in Auburn’s Student Chapter of AGC teamed up with Alabama Rural Ministry (ARM) to volunteer for the MLK Day Celebration.
The group was assigned a sub-floor replacement project at the residence of a local elderly couple. Years of moisture and further water damage caused substantial damage to the kitchen and corridor area of the home. One of our main concerns was how to support the appliances in these areas. The elderly couple is homebound, so safety was key motivator for the project as well as during construction.
Working near the family was not ideal for construction, but it provided a great opportunity to get to know the couple. When the AGC team arrived on site, we quickly realized that we were going to finish the subfloor replacement extremely fast. So, we got on the phone with ARM, and started to ask for more work. What we found out was the long-time residents of Lee County had much more work that needed to be completed. Our AGC team split up to begin working on a leaking roof over the master bedroom area.
All in a day’s work, this crew was able to complete demo and new instillation of deteriorated subflooring, install new finish flooring, complete a temporary roof patch over the master bedroom of the home, and structurally support increased live loads in the kitchen. As a group, we took pride in how much work we were able to accomplish, however this was not the highlight of our trip. The opportunity to meet and build a relationship with the elderly couple in our local community, was something that we will remember for years after our time at Auburn is complete.
This project is one of the many ways the local student chapter tries to make an impact on the local community while embodying the principles of AGC.