Employees Roll Up Their Sleeves at Volunteer Build Days

Each month, Kaiser Permanente Diablo Service Area employees are donning hard hats, grabbing hammers and helping lay the foundation—literally—for a community of 42 new homeowners. The Kaiser Permanente employee Build Day program kicked off early on the morning of Saturday, August 20, as 20 Kaiser Permanente team members gathered at Esperanza Place and suited up in safety vests to do the work of increasing access to homeownership among families earning limited incomes.

Shoulder to shoulder with future residents, they got to work measuring, cutting, hauling and sweating. The screeching of saws and clanking of planks competed against the friendly chatter of coworkers catching up with each other. Working together in a new way, the team prepared the form for a fresh foundation to be poured, which will soon give rise to eight townhomes that local families will call home.

In September, another team of volunteers picked up where the first team left off. They hammered away at the site, expanding the foundation and constructing rooftops. Kaiser Permanente employee and San Pablo Habitat homeowner Rose Baty showed up to pitch in, shedding light on the value of this work. “I’m thankful for Habitat,” she shared. “There’s no way I could have sent three kids off to college without having my Habitat home.”