Today is a day of camaraderie, service, and excitement all across Portage as hundreds of volunteers come together through Rebuilding Together at seven locations throughout Portage in order to assist with home improvements.
Rebuilding Together, a national program, used to be called Christmas in April in the Portage community and has always been an impactful day for its citizens. The mission of the program is to help those in need of home repair who are either physically or financially unable to complete the tasks themselves.
Volunteers young and old came together at the various sites in Portage to make a difference as thousands of volunteers across the United States are doing the exact same thing in their communities! Whether it's gathering to do yard work, electrical work, roof repair, or bedroom reconstruction, no site team today is left empty handed of work to do!
Shelly Kwiatkowski, the team leader at one of Portage's seven locations, has been participating in Christmas in April/Rebuilding Together for 11 years now. After hearing about the project from the president of the organization, Tom Cmarich, she began volunteering and has now been a house captain for five years.
"Working with the volunteers is so amazing every year," Kwiatkowski gushed, "They're just so excited to be here, working together, giving back, and getting the job done." Kwiatkowski laughed later saying, "Honestly, you hardly have to tell these folks anything before they're getting at it, finding things to clean up, pick up, fix. The energy is crazy."
"We participated in Rebuilding Together Portage. It was a great day for a great cause. Many of our local carpenters spent their day helping out those less fortunate," said President of Local 1005 Steve Toth.
Other carpenters alongside Toth also donated their time and effort including John Hennrich, Sandy Hennrich, Woody Coppinger. Denver Hollifield, John Hasse, Dereck Symanski, Matt Sapanski, Alex Wilcox Jay Patz, Matt Lauerman, Al Slease, Ed Arambula and Rubin Mendez.
Any and all who took out time today to participate in Rebuilding Portage deserve incredible thank you's. Those who are taking the initiative to make this community and others better places to live are those who truly make a difference.