HAMMERSTONE HELPS PUERTO RICO
Update from January 18, 2020
As I do some mid-winter website maintenance, I have been debating whether or not to remove this page. While we are not currently doing any work in Puerto Rico, this was important chapter in our history; we were honored to receive community support to help rebuild after Hurricane Maria. I will leave the page up as a reminder to you and to ourselves of the importance of sharing our skills and resources around the globe. Thanks once again to all who contributed to our work in Puerto Rico.
Update from March 21, 2018
We would like to shout a huge “thank you” for all of your support of our work in Puerto Rico! We were honored to have the opportunity to give back to our countryfolk most in need, and could only do it with your contributions.
Read on for a photographic update of the work we accomplished in our 10 day trip. For those of you still ensconced in the northern winter, we hope these pictures of sunshine, lizards, and happy faces will warm your hearts.
As for our ongoing work: we returned from Puerto Rico feeling a deep need to head back as soon as possible. Not only do we have more work to do to wrap up Pucha’s house, but the entire island is still in a state of disrepair. We are currently researching ways to make our ongoing work financially possible. Our GoFundMepage remains live to support our efforts for the short term. For the longer term, we are researching other funding possibilities. Please feel free to share this update about our work and our GoFundMe page with any and all who might be interested. And if you have connections to specific programs that might make our ongoing work more sustainable, please contact us. We welcome your collaboration!
Once again, thank you from the bottoms of our hearts. Your generosity makes our work possible!
Happy hammering,
Maria Klemperer-Johnson
Julie Kitson
Christina Alario
Rebekah Carpenter
Melissa Galliher
Crista Shopis
Lisa Howard
PUCHA
Over the course of our 10 days in Gurabo, we got to know Pucha well, as she cooked us dinner and regaled us with stories almost every night. She is a deeply religious woman, who thanked God for connecting us with her. She said she had prayed every day since the hurricane for help to get back into her house on which she had worked for years to turn into a cozy home. She drew connections between our work now and her own missionary work years ago when she traveled deep into the jungle of Central America, hiking for hours and traveling by barely sea-worthy boats to bring aid and support to impoverished communities.
Pucha is a single mother of 3 adult women and grandmother to 6. Several of her grandchildren live with her in her temporary housing in her brother’s house a few doors down from her own house. She works as a cook in the local schools, leaving for work at 5:30 am every day. Every evening that we were in Gurabo, she prepared hearty meals for us of rice and beans, fried plantains, mofongo (a Puerto Rican delicacy), lasagna, chicken, or seafood. What a pleasure to eat so well after a hard day’s work!
Our Reconstruction Work
Our plan for renovating Pucha’s house was to tear out the moldy, water-damaged wall covering, tile the floors, patch up electric, and reinstall wall boards. We were able to follow through on the demolition and the tile installation.
A couple of hiccups delayed our progress. The first was the weather in upstate NY, which delayed the departure of most of our team for a day! Second, the condition of the concrete substrate of Pucha’s floors was in much worse condition than we thought, requiring us to grind the entire floor with a diamond blade in order to ensure adequate adhesion of our tile (that’s what causes all the dust in our time lapse photos).
Finally, the biggest challenge we encountered was the condition of the electrical wiring in Pucha’s house. While we had included minor patching and repair in our scope of work as we planned this trip, we did not anticipate how incredibly unsafe the existing wiring was. There were numerous in-wall splices (a big no-no), and in many places, the wiring was so rat-chewed that there were foot long stretches of bare, uninsulated copper – a fire just waiting to happen.
The upside to this unpredicted complication was that it allowed us to foster a connection we had made earlier in the week with a Puerto Rican woman electrician, Lisa Spickers-Sepulveda. Lisa is a licensed electrician – one of only a couple of dozen women electricians on the island. In addition to plying her trade, she teaches electrical basics and safety at elementary schools. Clearly, she is a tradeswoman cut from the same cloth as us! We are thrilled that on our return we will get to hire Lisa to work alongside us and nurture our cross-cultural sisterhood in the trades.
Workshops at the YWCA
Here at Hammerstone we believe in the aphorism: Feed a woman a fish and she eats for the day. Teach a woman to fish and she eats for a lifetime. The women of Puerto Rico apparently believe that as well. The YWCA was overwhelmed by the turnout for our 3-hour carpentry workshop. When we arrived to teach, they immediately informed us that they had created a waiting list and that we would be coming back in April to teach another, more in-depth class. We, of course, said “Yes!”
You can see from this photo that there was a real mix of participants at the workshop. Many spoke English, but some didn’t, so we taught as much as we could in Spanish. When we got stuck, students shouted words to us as we pantomimed.
We, as always during our classes, were energized by the enthusiasm of the participants. There is a real hunger among Puerto Rican women, to take matters into their own hands, build their own self sufficiency, and take control of the reconstruction of their island themselves.
Moving Forward
When we uncovered the extent of disrepair in the electrical wiring, we had a heart-to-heart with Pucha. We had planned to patch the wiring and reinstall the wall coverings in her house. But we couldn’t in good conscience leave her wiring in the state it was in, even with patches and repairs. But we knew that rewiring it correctly would require a second trip, and we weren’t sure when that would be feasible.
“No te preoccupes,” she said. “Don’t worry. I have faith that God will find a way for you to return.”
Pucha’s attitude, along with the imperative from the YWCA that we offer more classes, cemented our decision to return to Puerto Rico. We are now in the planning phase of a second trip, organizing personnel, looking for plane tickets, connecting and scheduling with our contacts on the island, and most importantly, continuing our fundraising efforts.
We are currently investigating other long term sources of funding, including looking into Governor Cuomo’s initiative: New York Stands with Puerto Rico. In the meantime, we are continuing our GoFundMe campaign in order to continue this valuable and necessary work. Please share this newsletter with anyone you think may be interested in learning about our work and supporting us!
Original Post
In early February, my colleague Julie Kitson and I traveled to Gurabo, Puerto Rico. The purpose of our trip was twofold: to witness what life is like for Puerto Ricans on the ground in the wake of Hurricane Maria, and to find a way for Hammerstone to help out with reconstruction efforts. Our experiences there blew our minds away. While a tremendous amount of work has been done since September, parts of the island still need to dig out from under the debris before they can even begin rebuilding. More than 4 months after the storm, houses are still missing roofs, electrical wires lie in tangles under snapped poles, and there are waiting lists months long just to line up labor for repairs.
We returned from our short reconnaissance visit with ambitious visions for collaborating for the long term in the reconstruction efforts. In the short term, we’ve identified a project with immediate impact, repairing the house of a woman who has been displaced since September. We returning the first week in March to work on this project and others. Read on to learn more about Pucha and the work we plan to do for her, the equine therapy center that will be hosting us during our work trip, our crew of women builders, and our plans for a longer term collaboration and education in Puerto Rico.
Most importantly, we need your help to do this work. We are fundraising to cover all materials and operational costs of this effort. The money we raise supports our construction projects in March, and also helps us create a more permanent presence to continue assisting with reconstruction in Puerto Rico for the longer term. Please support our GoFundMe campaign to help Hammerstone help rebuild Puerto Rico.
Thank you!
Pucha
Pucha leaves home at 5:00 every morning to work as a cook in the local schools. She hasn’t stayed in her own home since Hurricane Maria. The storm initially took her roof, but since she wasn’t able to repair it, for the past 4 months rain has been drenching her house, destroying all her personal possessions and slowly decaying the structure of her house.
In the past few weeks, our friends at Rogues on Roofs were able to put a new metal roof on Pucha’s house preventing any further damage. Pucha and her family were able to remove the last of her damaged possessions and furniture, and to remove the ruined linoleum floor.
When we met with Pucha, she was excited to meet a group of women builders. “I would do this work myself,” she exclaimed! “I’ve done it before, but I’m 60 now, not 20!”
Our Project
This picture shows the 3 main items we will tackle during our work trip.
Pucha’s linoleum floors were ruined by the rain. Most of the old material has been scraped up, leaving a concrete substrate ready for porcelain tile. Tile is a durable, cleanable, and culturally appropriate floor surface for this house.
The interior partition walls and the 3 wood framed exterior walls are covered with 1/4″ plywood. Most of this plywood is water damaged beyond repair, and is potentially hiding mold and rot. We will remove all the wall covering, inspect and repair framing, replace it with new plywood, and then give it a fresh coat of paint.
Once the walls are open, we will have the opportunity to inspect and repair the electric system, adding new lights and switches if necessary.
If we have the time and budget, we will purchase and install new kitchen cabinets for Pucha.
CARRYING ON OUR EDUCATIONAL MISSION
Here at Hammerstone we believe in the aphorism: Feed a woman a fish and she eats for the day. Teach a woman to fish and she eats for a lifetime.Even though this initial trip is coming up soon, we are working hard to include as much education for local women as possible. We have already spoken with the office of the mayor of Gurabo who is enthusiastic about our proposed work. We hope with their help to line up a Puerto Rican woman to work alongside us for our work at Pucha’s, Mundo’s, and rebuilding roofs.
Rogues on Roofs also connected us with Juanita Valentin-Morris, the director of the YWCA in San Juan where we will be offering an afternoon skills building workshop to the women and girls associated with the YWCA.
FOR THE LONGER TERM
We know that many Hammerstone alumnae and fans are eager to participate themselves in this reconstruction work. Learning carpentry skills is more meaningful when those skills can be put directly to use supporting folks in need. Part of our work in March will be to create more lasting structures that will allow us to include both Hammerstone students from the states as well as puertorriqueñas in educational reconstruction efforts.
One avenue for teaching women on real construction sites will be by carrying on the efforts of Rogues on Roofs. Rogues on Roofs are a lightweight and nimble non-organization that is doing critical work putting metal roofs on houses. This work is dependent upon having knowledgeable crew leaders and hardworking laborers to get the work done and get it done right. This work also lends itself well to the training of new construction workers – there is plenty of work so it’s easy to build the repetitions needed to solidify new skills. Our friend and Rogues on Roofs co-founder, Lisa Howard, is a great example of this. Lisa showed up for a volunteer trip in December of 2017. A week after returning home from Gurabo, she flew right back to help start Rogues on Roofs. Lisa is tough and hardworking, but had little previous carpentry experience. Just 3 weeks into her work with Rogues on Roofs, she has learned their system, mastered the impact driver, and is well on her way to being a team leader installing new roofs.While in Gurabo, we will continue the discussion of how to keep Rogues on Roofs running, and how to plug Hammerstoners into the process in meaningful and educational ways.
OUR TEAM
Our team comprises women builders with diverse backgrounds and experience. We are a herd of unicorns – women working in non-traditional trades – who share the vision of increasing our numbers until women carpenters, electricians, painters, welders and plumbers aren’t viewed as odd, unusual, or novelties.
Maria Klemperer-Johnson, a builder since 2002, has been working specifically to empower women in trades work since 2013 through Hammerstone School: Carpentry for Women .
Julie Kitson, a builder since 2002, has more recently been working as a construction manager in the Ithaca area. She works to train and hire women as much as possible.
Rebekah Carpenter is an electrician, despite what her last name might indicate. She has worked installing Solar PV systems in Ithaca and around the world with her business Fingerlakes Renewables since 1999.
Melissa Galliher has worked in the trades for 13 years and owned her own drywall and painting business since 2015.
Christina Alario has been working as a carpenter for 2.5 years. She also teaches carpentry skills to women as a part of Hammerstone School.
Lisa Howard is new to construction. She has been working installing new metal roofs for folks in Puerto Rico with the organization Rogues on Roofs since January.
Crista Shopis, an engineer with Taitem Engineering since 2007, has specialized in energy efficiency and solar electricity. Before that she was a Peace Corps volunteer in Paraguay where she built her own home and helped communities design and build running water systems. Crista’s grandmother was born and raised in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico.
Megan-Mack Nicholson, an outdoor educator and carpenter in her own right, is the organizing force that brought this group together. While she won’t be able to join us in early March, she is part of our ongoing work.
OUR SUPPORT NETWORK IN GURABO
We are fortunate to have connected with Edmundo Jimenez, owner of The Equus Center in Gurabo, where before the storm he provided equine therapy to a wide variety of folks with diverse needs. Mundo’s farm was completely destroyed by the hurricane.
While Mundo himself is still reeling from the storm and trying to rebuild his farm and business, he has generously let us use the facility as a staging ground for our work. We will camp in the covered riding ring, cook in the small kitchen in a trailer on the property, use the facilities, electricity and water that have been reconnected at the farm, and build upon his goodwill in the neighborhood and town. Mundo is well connected with local and state leaders, and is personally invested in our educational initiative.
Mundo is generous with his facility in the hopes of rebuilding his community, and also needs support himself. One of our projects while we are in Gurabo will be to rebuild his stables so his horses will finally have covered shelter again.
THANK YOU!
Your positive feedback as we’ve been dropping hints about this endeavor has kept us fueled. We hope you will follow our progress on facebook and instagram to stay engaged with our work on the island. And most importantly, your financial support is what allows us to tackle this project.Thank you!
