MNA Sheds of Hope teams are taking a Covid-19 pandemic forced break for a few weeks. We continue to have regular discussions with churches in tornado-trounced Nashville and Cookeville TN. As soon as travel and gathering restrictions are lifted we will likely be active in both communities. Pray the restrictions are lifted soon so that we can resume helping families get back on their feet.

In the meantime we continue to plan and prepare, using the time we have been given to better equip for the future. One project we have been undertaking is fabricating wallboard supports. We temporarily fasten these to the 4 corners of a Shed of Hope while it is being assembled on a homeowner’s property to support aluminum walk-boards. The walk-boards permit volunteers to safely stand at an elevated level while roofing the shed.

In the foreground of the above picture you can see the new stack of 8 steel supports. Behind, there is a wooden version. We finally disposed of all of the wooden ones because they were thrown together in a hurry during the numerous Sheds of Hope builds in Panama City last year when teams were building in multiple locations at once. They weren’t intended for long-term use, and had deteriorated quite badly. The steel ones were designed by John Browne, and really speed up the roof sheeting and shingling process, and are lighter than the ones constructed of wood. The alternative is to work strictly on ladders, which limits how many volunteers can contribute.

Now we have 3 complete sets of supports, since it takes 4 for each shed build. We would like to have at least 3 more sets of these supports so that we can safely equip 6 teams. Do you have a fabricator/welder in your church or network? Please share this post with them and ask if they would be willing to invest a day fabricating a couple sets of supports; their efforts will bless the socks off many storm-crushed families. The MNA Warehouse in Rome GA has the tools on-hand to accomplish this-just add volunteers! A couple of volunteers could go there and fabricate them in one day, or they could build them at work, or at home. It could be a fun project for a few capable folks. Let us know!

Enjoy the entire video of these lovely RUF University of Kentucky students helping flooded homeowners in SC, but advance to about 5:20 to see the metal brackets and how they are used.