Nathaniel Thiele

Blake House-https://pathwaytohope.org/

Background

Ever since a young age, I’ve volunteered at non-profits. My mom works for a nonprofit and my family is very philanthropic.

 We donate annually to our church, support a top-rated zoo with a membership, pay for service member’s meals, and help fund a burn hospital.  I think helping people is my blood. 

Non-Profits

Helping people assets you get a better understanding of different people and help you mature. Some of the non-profits I worked with include Harvesters, my local church, and Blessing Abounds. 

Harvesters is a food pantry that works with people in the Kansas City area. They sort donated food from useable to non-useable. I worked sorting carrots there. 

My local Church works with 13 mission partners and we have collections every month. Asides from food, we collect school supplies, mattresses, and pet food for the many local drives. 

Blessing Abounds is a thrift shop that helps people in the Kansas City area. They rely on donations and resell the donations to grow the business and expand the mission.

 Blake House

 But my all-time favorite nonprofit to help out is Pathway to Hope or better known as Blake House. Blake House is a house made in the 1800s to serve the farming community but over time it grew to serve as temporary housing for those with mental disorders. 

 Blake House is a real estate project which works to ensure that those dealing with mental illnesses have temporary housing to improve to become better members of society. 

Community exposure is important with any mental illness as it’s underrepresented in society. Community exposure is one of the best ways to raise awareness about needs and issues. 

Problems

My grandfather first became involved with Blake House after one of his friends lived there for a year. Blake House has many structural and environmental problems outside and within the house. The three main problems with the house that I played an active role in fixing were 

• Garden shed roof tiles replacement
• Fixed the railing on the balcony
• Tree and lawn maintenance

These problems were adverted with projects my grandfather and I did together. Working with Blake House taught me valuable lessons. The most important lesson I learned was how not all exchanges need to involve money and some of the best work is free.

Garage Roof Tile Replacement

The garden shed roof had lots of storm damage after numerous years of not being replaced. The goal of the project was to replace tiles to create an improved garden shed roof. 

There was only one problem, I have a terrible fear of heights. Ever since I was a child, I feared going up ladders, climbing roofs, and going on airplanes. Since I had this fear, my job was to cut roof tiles to the right size as well as organize tools to ensure tools were handed up at the right time. 

Skills Learned

One of the other jobs was to clean up trash leftover from old nails and roofing tiles. This job took three days to complete. 

The four most important skills I learned were: to help no matter what happens, keep an accurate track of inventory, how to integrate math in the real world, and if you can’t do a project alone ask for help.

Even when it was raining, we worked on the roof. We worked until the task was complete spending over eight hours every day on the project for three days.

 We had to keep an accurate track of inventory to ensure the project was on schedule and completed to the best of our ability. I integrated math by using complex geometry to cut pieces into the right geometric shape to ensure that pieces would fit. I asked for help when I needed help. 

Fixed the Railing on the Balcony

One day we need to fix the railing on the balcony as it proves to be a potential hazard to those who leaned against it wrong. This potential hazard needs to be fixed to ensure that safety would be restored to the balcony. 

The problem with the balcony was the pillars were not connected to the railing. To fix it, we must apply glue to the railing as well as align pillars to fit the railing. 

Pillar Issues

Pillars needed to be fixed by adding glue to keep the existing brick from disconnecting. Pillars needed to connect by having hydraulics lift so we could properly place the pillars. 

We had to take safety precautions to ensure that no one got a hernia. This meant sometimes instead of doing fast work we had to ensure we were doing quality work. 

Quality Work

Quality work means you don’t skimp on materials or use the wrong building practice. My grandfather didn’t use the right type of rubber cement on the pillars. Instead of using concrete, he used rubber cement which wasn’t high quality and caused the pillars to fall over.

This meant a whole day of work had to be restarted. Restarting from ground zero is always hard. 

Tree and Lawn Maintenance

In the spring of 2018, the lawn needed to be mowed. So I had to mow the lawn at Blake House to ensure that the lawn was mowed to perfection. Blake House received a fine from the sheriff’s department because they didn’t mow the lawn or pick up sticks. 

This failure to act is part of the problem with Blake House. Most residents have a low drive to do work. Some of the residents have previous drug charges or have disorders that lead to low fulfillment from life.

Trees

By mowing the lawn I was able to provide value. Another project was to remove dangerous branches from the trees to prevent a tree branch from falling and damaging the house. 

The tree branches were hard to reach so I and my grandfather created a contraption that would take down trees using ropes, gravity, and leverage.

Tools

By throwing the contraption up in the air catching the tree branch, the branch would be hooked up to the ropes. Moving the ropes slightly would allow us to use the power of gravity to break off tree branches. 

We broke off ten key branches to ensure that the tree would continue to grow and not harm the house or the fence. This helps provide value for Blake House as it saved them time and money.

Value Provided

Working at Blake House taught me skills that became applicable to many of my jobs. I learned to invest time to help others to grow and allow myself to grow too. 

One of the skills learned by cleaning up trash from the roof was to clean. Later working at Noodles and Company. I was assigned to keep all places were clean and up to code. 

Benefits of Non-Profit

Non-profits encourage supporting the community as they run on donations to grow the mission. Learning to help the community helps strengthen bonds with all members of a community. 

Strong communities support all members. Communities grow with the addition of new members and specialized support.

In order to provide value, communities must create inclusive workspaces. Inclusive workspaces create value by not looking at individuality but looking at things in common. 

Volunteering at a local nonprofit allowed me to learn many valuable skills and create a valuable portfolio of skills to help any business.