Sylvester's house is in New Orleans East. He had about 6-8 feet of water in his house because of the flooding of hurricane Katrina. He and his family, 12 people in all, moved up to the attic. They had to cut a hole in the roof to get out. After a few days his mom, who is disabled, got airlifted out of the house, but the rest of his family had to stay in the attic. For several days they had to ration the few cans of food they had among them. Finally they too were reacued.
Because of the storm, he went to live with his sister in Mississippi, and lives there still today. Since then, he has been working on rebuilding his home. He hired a contractor to help him. A couple years ago the contractor told him he needed the rest of the money for the house (about $40 thousand) up front in order to complete the construction. Sylvester paid the man the $40,000 and the man left, stole his money and never finished the work. Sylvester is an olde man, with health problems. So St. Bernard Project took on his project in hopes of helping Sylvester get back to the life he had before Katrina, in his own home.
Sylvester's home is finally in what is called the "punch stage" of rebuilding. Which means our main jobs at this site were painting, caulking and putting up trim.
We also helped mud drywall that was unfinished, and worked a little bit on some tile.
Oh, and word to the wise, don't eat Pringles and paint at the same time. Or, at least, don't drop a can of Pringles into your paint tray.
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