Martin Luther King day is a time to give back and help your community. Since I live and work walking distance to the MLK center in Atlanta, GA I am constantly reminded of his message of peace, justice, and support for your fellow man. This year I volunteered with the 10th annual Martin Luther King Jr. Service Project held the weekend of January 14-16, 2012. Volunteers worked at senior citizens’ homes in the Oakhurst neighborhood of Decatur, GA.

Over 1,200 volunteers worked on projects that included

• Home repairs
• Yard work
• De-clutter homes and yards of “former treasures”
• Clean gutters
• Removing trash from homes to dumpsters strategically placed throughout Oakhurst

I, of course, assisted with weatherization. On Sunday we worked to strip the insulation off the metal ducts, repair the badly damaged ones, and seal all connections with mastic. Another team on Monday reinsulated the ducts and installed a polyethylene ground cover over the exposed dirt. In the photo below you can see the bands of mastic on the ducts and where the ducts were reattached with a new sheet metal collar. The second photo shows the exterior of the home after 2 days of work. With one day to go we had almost filled up the front yard with trash bags!

The Ductwork is Repaired and Sealed.

Exterior of the Home After Two Days of Volunteering.

A couple of things struck me while working on this person’s home.

• There truly are a large number of people who desperately need assistance with the maintenance and upkeep of their homes. In most cases these senior citizens had few places to turn to for assistance.
• Volunteering is not a selfless act. Helping others is one of the easiest ways to feel good about yourself…even while laying on your back sealing ductwork in a funky crawlspace!
• You are a green building nerd when the whole time you’re thinking you wish you had performed a duct blaster before and after sealing to document the improvement!

Check out Fox 5 Atlanta’s news coverage. They did a nice feature on Mr. Green, one of the homeowners.