Students from across U.S. spiff up homes in southeast Fresno

A new coat of tan paint, new plywood white trim on the house corners and brown trim repainted in a matching white. That’s what Jim Gonzales’ house on East Eugenia Avenue looked like as a team of volunteers with World Changers finished up their work week in Fresno.

Gonzales is 64 and lives in a house at 4441 E. Eugenia Ave. with his wife and five small dogs. He’s unable to get up a ladder anymore, leaving his house without a fresh coat of paint for 35 years. That’s where World Changers stepped in.

“World Changers is an organization that uses construction as an avenue to share the gospel,” said Fresno’s programming coordinator Lauren Annin.

More than 12,000 students volunteered to improve the homes and lives of people in 75 cities in North America this year. And more than 300,000 people have volunteered for World Changers since 1990, said spokeswoman Schyler Habowski.

It was World Changers’ second year in Fresno and its 11th year in the Fresno-Clovis area, said Annin. Houses were selected through referral from Every Neighborhood Partnership and from Councilman Sal Quintero.

About 160 students came to work in southeast Fresno, laboring from Tuesday to Friday in 13 different teams at 13 housing sites. Participants must be older than 12 and pay $269 to register as a volunteer in Fresno, which covers their food and lodging, Annin said.

“Each of our participants pay…to sweat and work hard and sleep on the floor at the Fresno Rescue Mission,” she said. “They do it all because they love Jesus and want to share that with other people.”

Gonzales described the makeover volunteers gave his house as simply “awesome.”

“There [are] no words to describe the thrill that it has been to have these kids…to have them like little work ants, just working on the property,” he said. “I’m sure they could be enjoy[ing] summer camp, enjoy[ing] summer vacation, but instead they are here.”

The volunteers started working on his house daily at about 7 a.m. and would stop at about 3 p.m., he said. He talked with the volunteers every day, learning some came from as far as Georgia and Missouri. On the last morning with them Friday, he told them how glad he was they came out to help and thanked them.

“It’s a blessing, a total godly blessing, that they came here and did what they’re doing,” he said.

Gonzales said his neighbor three houses down, Harold Hale, was the impetus that brought World Changers to their neighborhood.

Hale talked with Quintero about his neighborhood when they both went in to have blood drawn, and Quintero gave Hale his card. The next day Hale said he called Quintero, who put him in touch with Habitat for Humanity. The organization worked last year with World Changers in Fresno.

Hale is an 88-year-old World War II veteran who hasn’t been able to do any work on his home’s exterior for four years. So volunteers stained his entire house and painted its trim, the garage door and the underside of the patio roof white.

“And it looks great,” he said.

Jacob Wee, part of the Gonzales’ house team, is one of World Changers’ younger volunteers at 13. He hails from the Bay Area.

“It felt like God was calling me, and I just felt an urge to go help people,” he said. “It just felt like the right thing to do, to help out other people.”

Frank Blankenship was the crew chief and de facto adult supervisor of the team at Gonzales’ house. He said the No. 1 part of being a Christian is to serve people, and he’s worked with World Changers both times they’ve been in Fresno to do just that.

He has experience working with Army platoons, and he said the team of kids he spent the week directing was one of the best groups he’s ever worked with.

“Even though they’re all in high school,” he added.

This story was originally published July 18, 2015 at 3:33 PM with the headline "Students from across U.S. spiff up homes in southeast Fresno."