Random comments on past few events/newletter bullet style

Catching up and getting ahead:

1. Work in three cities in three days can be tiring! We were in Olean on Saturday, Buffalo on Sunday, and Randolph on Monday. Great job and big thanks to all the volunteers!  
2. Pictures from Randolph, Olean, Buffalo, and Salamanca can be seen here.
3. Painting a small house (Saturday AM) is much easier than scraping and painting a large house (Saturday PM).
4. I am always amazed and encouraged by how thankful those receiving the help are.  Often way out of proportion for the physical work actually performed.  It reminds me/us that the most important thing we do is often just showing up and listening, showing people that someone cares.
5. In Randolph one homeowner said his neighbor had been quoted a $3000 price to cut down three trees.  Wow.  Seems VERY high.
6. There are many trees down in Randolph but the town was largely (although not completely) spared structural damage and injuries.  So everyone was feeling both lucky and unlucky.
7. We are going back to Randolph on Friday (and maybe Thursday).  
8. Working locally has its advantages: worked with a guy (Gino) on Saturday that knew my grandfather.  He was telling me about the 1942 flood in Olean.  A garage floated 4 blocks into my Grandfather's back yard.
9. Work in Buffalo at Sal and Justin's house is coming along much faster than I expected.  The drywall we did being an exception.  We will be back working in Buffalo on Sunday.
10. Pictures of past few weeks are available here.
11. Made a new map of the trails we have cut around campus.  Get out and enjoy them! 
12. Added dates for upcoming semester: Aug 28th--welcome days work day!, Sept 10-12 (which includes Sept 11 Haiti Packing day--see below), October 2-3 (Livestrong Day/Weekend), Oct 8-12 Fall Break trip, plus things virtually every other weekend too!
13. We (along with SIFE) will soon announce a reading program whereby local schools will be able to give books away to children.  The impetus for this program was this NY Times article.  Read it and get involved!
14. We will also be working with Washington West Elementary school students this year to show that volunteering can be empowering.  We'd love you to be involved!
15. Quote of the week by a Randolph resident:  "I am so tired, I have not worked so hard in years, but I also don't remember feeling so good either."      

Now the begging section:

1. We could really use a pickup truck and a SMALL trailer.  Anyone have an old one they want to donate?
2. We also need a bigger storage space.  We asked SBU but was told that they will be soon renting out the place we had been hoping for.  So if anyone knows of a relatively large area somewhat close to SBU that we can use for storage, please let us know.
3. Still about $6000 short in donations for the feed 100,000 meals in Haiti (FoodforHaitiNow) program.  We have reserved the date (Sept 11), and paid out about $6000 to begin getting the food, but still need money.  So if you would like to lead a fund raiser (or if you just want to donate), please let us know.