Attorneys, staff members and their families participated in National Rebuilding Day on Saturday, April 25. For the past seven years, the firm has partnered with Rebuilding Together * Metro Chicago, a nonprofit organization that provides free home and community center repairs for elderly, disabled, low income homeowners and other nonprofit organizations.
This year, Freeborn sponsored Thelma's Place, a shelter providing interim housing for women, children and intact families. Thelma's Place is part of the Inner Voice network, Chicago's largest single nonprofit agency serving families, which assists at least 13,000 homeless people a year.
Volunteers from Freeborn (with some assistance from volunteer plumbers, carpenters and electricians) accomplished the following:
- Thelma’s Place was professionally tuck pointed;
- Twenty-seven new light fixtures were installed;
- Thirteen new, solid-core birch doors were installed;
- Sixteen rooms were painted;
- A two-story Rainbow Play System, for the children of Thelma’s Place, was added to the backyard;
- A water-damaged bathroom floor was rebuilt and new tile was installed;
- Four new toilets were installed;
- Three new shower enclosures and glass shower doors were added to the bathrooms;
- An existing kitchen was gutted, and a new stainless steel, six-burner oven, several new stainless steel work tables, a new stainless steel hand sink and a deep three-bowl sink unit were installed;
- Floor-to-ceiling storage shelves in a pantry were built; and
- Stone pavers for the front walkway were laid.
More than 250 chapters of Rebuilding Together exist nationwide; the Metro Chicago chapter is one of the five largest, and has been in existence for 18 years. In the organization’s first year, eight homes were repaired. In 2008, with the support of companies like Freeborn, the Metro Chicago repaired more than 90 homes, community centers, and schools and also cultivated several gardens. The 2009 event day marked a significant milestone as Rebuilding Together * Metro Chicago repaired its 1000th site this year.
Rebuilding Together spends 364 days of the year getting ready for a one-day “repair blitz” on National Rebuilding Day, the last Saturday in April. To learn more, please visit: http://www.rebuildingtogether-chi.com/
