MISSOULA – Members from Bike and Build cruised into Missoula on Monday and went to work for Habitat for Humanity.
The Bike and Build members brought extra help and extra exposure, which is something Habitat for Humanity is thankful for
"It’s a big thing for awareness. To get people out here it gets a lot more eyes on the project," said Missoula Habitat for Humanity Board Presiden Kelin Johnson. "It gets a lot more people engaged in the community to doing what we do and what they do and those two missions align well."
That mission is to provide affordable housing to families in need, but also to give them an opportunity to get back on their feet.
“Most tangibly and directly, we are putting up homes, and I know that Habitat and some of the other companies we work with that have all these procedures where it’s not just giving them a home, but the saying you keep hearing time and time again is we are not just giving a handout but a hand up," Bike and Build member CD Mattocks said.
To provide these houses, obviously, someone has to build them. And while Bike and Build might be the new guy on each job site, they carry the experience to help fill any role building a house might require.
"They are pretty adept to being able to work on whatever needs to be done. As you can see here they are working on probably half a dozen different things on a house at one time," Johnson said.
"We have done a good bit of framing and I have enjoyed that," Mattocks said. "I think one of our more recent ones, we did some drywall and I enjoyed that. There was one were something like they had a third party come pour concrete and they messed up the concrete so we had to dig it out. That was a little more challenging, you know. It’s hot, everything."
All of those challenges are worth it to see where the groups hard work is going.
"Maybe two or three builds ago, we came on the site and it was just the foundation and then by the end of the day we had all the exterior walls erected and several of the interior walls assembled and waiting to be erected and the family came by and she was in tears. It was such a drastic difference that she saw and with her kids," Mattocks said. "She was like, ‘let me leave and go get my kids to show them’ and she was just so happy and that was really inspiring to see that."
