People helping people: BAWN project aids single women

Norma Hammond choked back tears as she watched Matt and Janine Green on the floor of her tiny bathroom drilling holes and hammering a new vanity cabinet drawer into place.

"I'm always so afraid of asking people to help me," said Hammond, who is raising her 10-year-old granddaughter Keirra.

Hammond, of Carson City, was just one of 13 single women throughout Northern Nevada who received free help throughout the day Saturday with all the honey-do's around their homes.

The project was sponsored by the Women's Council of the Builder's Association of Western Nevada.

"This is the first year for us," said Jennifer Duve, president of the council. "We normally do a scholarship for women in business, but we thought we'd try something new. We thought we might get 10-15 applications, but we actually got 98."

Duve said the applications were sent home with students as well as through the BAWN newsletter, and then carefully screened for home repairs which could be be accomplished without permits or or causing possible code violations.

Each council member had a construction team which accompanied her to the homes of single women to complete tasks such as reinforcing fences, pouring concrete, shoring up French doors, fixing leaking shower heads, re-grouting tiles, replacing screens and much more.

At the Carson City home of Christine Donaldson, Sam Landis and Jim Feser of Ridgeline Development were installing a handle on the front screen door after a morning of completing other small projects.

"We donated all the materials," Landis said.

"This is such a wonderful service," Donaldson said. "It's such a help. These are the kinds of things I don't even know where to begin on, and I've needed them done for several years. I'm just delighted for this help."

Hammond said she felt the same way.

"These are all things I've had to put off because of money. I also had knee and back surgery so I wasn't able to do a lot of things. I'm just so pleased because there were so many things I haven't been able to do and they've come through and done them all," she said with tears brimming in her eyes. "I'm so amazed. I thought I was asking for so much. I'm just so grateful."

The couple from Green Quality Construction just smiled broadly and went cheerfully from the bathroom onto the next project of installing a screen door to Hammond's carport, asking "What else do you need? What else do you need?"

Meanwhile, a group of boys from Rite of Passage was busy in her backyard clearing weeds and debris.

The story was the same at two other Carson City homes Saturday, as well as four in the Carson Valley, two in Reno, two in Dayton and one in Stagecoach.

Duve said the Helping Hands project was dear to her heart because she was a single mother and "I really wanted to do something to be able to help other women in my position."

Duve's 16-year-old son Tyler came along Saturday to get involved because he plans to organize a similar event for his senior project at Carson High School next year.

"I wanted to help out my mom and her group today because when I was growing up, she was a single mom who raised me. I learned to do things to help her, but I wanted to support her in this today," he said.

Other builders who donated materials, time and expertise Saturday were Miles Construction, Incline Builders, Jares Construction, Tahoe Fence Co. and BSA Construction.

Duve said the Women's Council will be looking at possibly organizing a Helping Hands day twice a year.

BAWN's chief executive officer Rick DeMar said earlier this year that the association has good reasons for offering such an event.

"We live in this community," he said. "This community is where we make our bread and butter. We need to help."