Small groups split up to complete tasks, such as tack on house wrap, under the watchful eyes of more experienced volunteers.

Leader photo by Derek Firenze

A group of local volunteers is building hope while building homes.

Inspired by compassion for unsheltered neighbors, members of Community Build have been diligently working away at 10 new tiny homes destined for the Caswell-Brown Village.

Community Build is a community-started and community-run organization that mobilizes volunteer resources to build projects to benefit the underserved while strengthening connections for the community as a whole.

“I’m in this for the cultivation of compassion,” said Judy Alexander, who leads community engagement for the group.

While the goal of the organization is to build houses, the relationships that get developed are a big reason the volunteers take time out of their lives to put hammer to nail.

“It’s actually a way for us, personally, to build community,” said Colleen Connell, a regular volunteer.

“I also have personal, selfish reasons,” Connell added. “All my life I’ve wanted to build things, but as a woman I’ve never been able to find a pathway that moved forward on it. I’m never going to get a paid career, but I can do something like this and I can learn skills and be of some use.”

As people are still getting familiar again with living life in-person after the pandemic pried so many apart, the builds offer a chance to meet face to face for a meaningful cause.

“I signed up because it was a really tangible way to come into the community and it was easy to step in,” said Rose Madrone, another dedicated volunteer.

Earlier, Community Build successfully constructed tiny homes for both Peter’s Place in Port Hadlock and Pat’s Place in Port Townsend. With those experiences under their belt, the Olympic Community Action Program contracted them to build another set for the open air shelter off of Mill Road in Port Townsend.

For the Pat’s Place build, the team was able to utilize the Evangelical Bible Church to stage their construction, which offered a great deal of visibility to the project, inspiring people driving by to join in.

These days, however, volunteers are a little more tucked away at the New Life Church off of Hastings.

“The church has been amazingly supportive,” Alexander said.

Exemplifying that charitable support, on the last Saturday of October with a chill holding firm to the fog, Pastor Bill Wolfe came out to offer hot, fresh breakfast burritos to the volunteers working in the cold.

The mornings always begin with everyone circling up, coffee in hand.

To start things off, Dave Merrill instructs the ragtag band about the day’s work. Merrill has a wealth of knowledge as both a builder and leader after separate careers as a retired contractor and public school teacher. He now drives in twice a week from Sequim to volunteer with Community Build.

For previous builds, the group worked on one house at a time, which meant Merrill would have to run around helping on a variety of things at once.

This time, however, another handy volunteer, Jerry Harpole, threw out the idea of using an assembly line style where the group focuses on one stage of building at a time on each of the houses before moving onto the next step.

Not only does this save time and effort for Merrill, but the discounts they managed by buying materials in bulk allowed them to purchase one more house than they had anticipated.

Even with this solid plan of action, more help could come in handy.

“We do need more public support,” Alexander said.

Amongst a list of many reasons why she volunteers, Alexander named a motivation to engage young people to develop the skills Merrill is willing to teach so local building trades have people to hire in the future.

She also mentioned that previous events in warmer weather had drawn larger groups of volunteers with greater age diversity, while only 10 white-haired workers had arrived by 11 a.m. on that cold October morning.

Currently, the build meets on Wednesday and Saturday at New Life Church with the goal of finishing the houses under construction by the first week of December. All are welcome to help by signing up in advance at community-build.org/volunteer.