During my trip early this year to Durham, North Carolina, I left the state for a brief time to head to Florida, where I would be meeting my mother Teresa in Orlando, for the celebration of her 60th birthday, and then moving onto Miami, where I would be covering the World Baseball Classic for the Canadian Baseball Network and Baseball America for a short time. 
Because of my experiences with Durham Habitat, I made it a priority to try and find a way to volunteer during my time in Orlando. I found Habitat for Humanity of Greater Orlando, and signed up to experience the organization in another place with new people and in a new environment and neighbourhood.
Orlando’s branch of the organization had many similarities and some interesting differences. The most fascinating aspect of where I was volunteering in Florida was that Habitat had essentially taken over an entire community. There was a neighbourhood with more than 50 Habitat homes, its owners all neighbours.
I would later learn that in addition to the sweat equity hours that Orlando home owners would put in working on their own houses, as well as helping with their neighbours’ homes, they were also required to complete hours in a classroom setting, where they would learn about financial planning, budgeting, how to care for their home, and more. Not only did it allow them increased knowledge in these areas, but being in these classes with their neighbours allowed for more of a sense of closeness and a sense of community that they would share when they moved into the neighbourhood.
In Orlando, I worked with a site supervisor and a group of young men from a vocational school, who needed to complete community service hours/ They were joined and supervised by two of their teachers, to try and gain life skills and experience life outside of the classroom setting that hadn’t worked for them in the past. They were all happy to participate and eager to help, though disappointed that they weren’t old enough to use power tools.
Though my experience in Orlando was shorter than that with Durham Habitat, I still gained a wealth of knowledge from the people I worked with and volunteered alongside, contributed to a new community, and advanced my own building skills with the help of the site supervisors.
I learned, I enjoyed, I contributed, and I felt like I helped to make a difference in some small way at the end of each day.
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