Extreme Community Makeover comes to Lincoln Park

Last Saturday we joined with an organization called Extreme Community Makeover which happened to come to our neighborhood of Lincoln Park this past weekend.

Extreme Community Makeover is an organization that invites people into a partnership with residents of typically lower income Denver neighborhoods to complete home and neighborhood improvement projects. It serves as a way to build relationships with the residents and at the same time help them with work around their house. It usually involves painting, yard work, or other projects identified by the residents.

On Saturday, there were about 8 of us who helped Victor and his family paint their house. Victor lives with his family and some other extended family members (total of 10 people) in about a 900 sq ft house! An important part of ECM is to work “with” the family so Victor, his wife, and his kids were also out there with us painting. ECM was able to work with Home Depot to get the paint donated.

Around noon everyone working on various ECM projects around the neighborhood (probably about 100 of us total) was supposed to meet back at a designated location to eat lunch. But, before we could go anywhere, Victor’s wife brought out a huge pot of soup with fresh tortillas, peppers and chili for everyone to eat. It was delicious and great to be able to enjoy a meal with the family!

Participate in Creating a Better World, One Couch at a Time

What if someone in a different part of the country or world opened up their house to you?

Last weekend we hosted some people from couchsurfing.org at our house. It is a way for those who are travelling to stay on people’s couches in lieu of renting a hotel (in our case we had a spare bedroom). This way when you are visiting a city, you can stay with a local who knows about the area, knows the language, and you can make connections with other people around the country and world.

We hosted a couple during their road trip throughout the western US. It was our first experience and we weren’t really sure what to expect. It turned out to be a great experience and we met some wonderful people. We had planned on grilling some burgers with our neighbors and invited our couch surfers to join us. We had great conversation and lots of laughs. I think the idea of building meaningful connections with people all around the country and the world by sharing your home and life with them is an amazing and logical concept. It makes the world just a little bit smaller.

We will be visiting South East Asia for 3 weeks at Christmas and hope we can find someone to host us while we’re travelling.

Check it out:
http://www.couchsurfing.org/