Week One at FUMCH

Saturday, February 19, 2022

We have a team of nine NOMADS working at the Florida United Methodist Children’s Home (FUMCH). We have previously worked with four of the team members but have made three new friends with people we have not worked with on previous projects. The children’s home provides residential care, emergency shelter, foster care, family counseling and many other services for children and families. The agency has had some difficult times over the past couple of years as so many other similar facilities have also experienced. However, they are still working hard for the children in their care and we NOMADS are glad we can help with the maintenance and upkeep of their facilities for the children.

The two of us, along with Mary and Phil, were assigned the task of completing an open air worship area on the campus. It faces Lake Munroe and is in such a peaceful and beautiful setting. This first week, we worked on laying out the arrangement of benches and after developing our plan, began, clearing the area, digging holes, mixing cement and setting the benches. The platform and cross in the pictures were installed prior to our arrival. We are happy with our progress but still have lots of work to do. We have worked with Mary and Phil on previous projects and have really enjoyed working with them again. Since we are working outside and away from the rest of the team we haven’t seen or been able to view their work yet. Maybe we can gather some photos from them for our next blog. We do know that there has been painting in some of the cottages, repairs of toilets and appliances, installation of a fence gate and some electrical work done. It was a good week.

Our task – install these heavy metal benches …

The first step was to smooth out the area and remove some of the vegetation. Many hours of John Deere tractor practice on Pine Mountain helped out.

With the ground prepared, the next step was to layout the rows.

Digging the holes for the concrete that will hold the benches in place

We tried to make sure each bench was level side to side, front to back and with the other bench in that row. Fortunately, the shop here has an 8 foot level.

After digging the holes and positioning the forming tubes, we built up supports from scrap lumber to hold the benches while the concrete set.

Mary drilling holes in the bench legs. We inserted rods through the holes to make sure the benches stayed stable in the concrete.

Fortunately, we had a forklift available to move the benches. Phil was the operator.

First row of benches placed and stabilized waiting for concrete.

Mixing concrete. It took about a bag and a half for each tube.

It was a bit of a chore to tamp the concrete in the forms under the bench seats.

… and tested.

The outdoor worship area at the end of the week.

Yesterday we visited Blue Spring State Park to do some hiking and see a few manatees. Earlier in the week there had been over 200 in the spring but as the week got warmer, the manatees left the spring and we only saw about a dozen on this trip. We still enjoyed our time at the park. It’s very pretty and peaceful and it’s always so great to see the beautiful manatees even if the numbers were down from earlier in the week. We enjoyed the warmer weather just much as the manatees did.