Fulfilling, heartwarming, energizing, worthwhile, fun, interesting, well-organized, satisfying, awesome, teamwork.

These are just some of the words that participants used to describe the Corporate Systems group working with the Grapevine Housing Authority to clean up and repair around the houses of deserving residents.

It wasn’t all a bed of roses, though (mostly just the thorns, which we’ll explain later). Our Give Time Together event started out under a cloud.  Literally. Our first attempt at working with GHA was on May 11^th. It was already misting that morning and looked like there was a possibility of the weather worsening. We decided to go out to our volunteer site anyway with the hope that the weather would clear up. Pretty soon, everyone was hard at work in the mist and making good progress. Shortly thereafter though, the mist turned into rain and then a hard rain. Looking back, one participant said it was pretty funny seeing all of these people trying to hang clothes lines, do gardening and other tasks in the pouring rain. I imagine that we were quite a site. A decision was made to cancel the event that day and regroup later. (Thanks David!)

We were able to reschedule our volunteer event for the afternoon of May 18^th.  Everyone grabbed some lunch and then we headed out to the site. Fortunately the weather cooperated this time. We were only scheduled for 4 hours, and there was a lot of work to be done. We split into several teams with different teams taking care of weeding, trimming and other tasks around each of the housing units, doing similar tasks plus creating an amazing flower garden around the front office, fighting an overgrowth of vines and plants on the back fence, trimming trees along the boulevard, hanging clotheslines and hanging garden hose keepers.  

 We knew we had a good strong team, but no one anticipated just what human dynamos our members were. After about 2 ½ hours we began to run out of work around the primary volunteer site, so a large group of us headed across the street to another GHA site to do battle with a forest that had grown into and become intertwined with a chain link fence. This mass of vines and trees was probably only second in comparison to the famed Big Thicket of East Texas. Nevertheless, we jumped right into work cutting, nipping, hacking and sawing at the entanglement. Unfortunately, the vines fought back. Close to 50% of the overgrowth consisted of briars with the toughest stems and sharpest longest thorns that you will ever see. As a result, a significant number of our group sustained cuts, bruises, and puncture wounds. There were no complaints though and we all considered it a small sacrifice for such a worthy cause. As one of the participants said, it was amazing how in about 90 minutes we cleaned off over 100 feet of chain link fence covered with vines, stickers and small trees.

It was very heartwarming that some of the residents were so appreciative of our work that they kept thanking us and offering cold water to members of our group. Another resident came out and spent considerable time talking with the team that was weeding his garden. He was only slightly upset that we had accidentally pulled up his garlic plants the first time we were out, LOL! One of the residents did not comment on the fact that we were removing a 7 foot evergreen from his flower bed, but once it was gone he expressed appreciation that he could now see his neighbor. Similarly, one of the volunteers was carrying a huge mountain of brush, when a woman came running out and hugged her so hard she almost fell to the ground. The resident thanked her over and over and said, “Now I can see the other side of the fence, nice and clear.” One of our participants also had this story: While weeding one of the beds, a gentleman came out and thanked us. He then proceeded to talk about being a lifetime Texan, and how he and his dad (WWII and WWI vets respectively) helped to build the Grapevine Gazebo.” 

Despite the scratches and sore muscles, all of us felt that this was a very worthwhile event. Not only were we helping residents who were elderly or disabled do work that they were not able to take care of themselves, we cleaned up areas that could have resulted in demerits from HUD and affected the funding received by the Grapevine Housing Authority.

One final note: While cleaning an overgrown garden, one team discovered two Garden Gnomes. It looks like we were just meant to be there.