Friday, September 2 Set-Up

Today's set-up went really smoothly thanks to two of our newest volunteers, Linda Mann and April Hinkle,  joining me today for the set-up in Westwood.  The family moving in including a veteran and her two teenage children, Jon (19) and Brittany (15) and their three bedroom, two bath flat is going to be a comfortable home for them after all the uncertainty in their lives.  Linda and April needed very little guidance and once I'd gone over the the core basic...make it as pretty as you can with what we have...they were off and running.  The pictures will show you what a great job they did.

Krista Stilley, the director of Westwood Transitional Village stopped by not long before we finished and it was nice to be able to introduce Linda and April to her and to hear a little story she had about the family moving out of the unit we were 'decorating.'  Krista said the family living there was one we had helped two years prior, a mom and her three young children who Krista said had become real favorites of hers.  The mother availed herself of every service available and studied and worked and saved, all while parenting her children with grace and energy and here's the good part...she managed to save $13,000 while living there and was moving into a brand new apartment with her kids and getting ready to start her new job at Cedars Sinai in the medical records department.  These are the stories we love to hear.

After setting up the apartment, I took Linda and April over to the Bessie Pregerson CDC so they could meet Sandra Menendez, the director, and also have a quick tour of the wonderful facility that is so critical to the development of the little ones at Westwood.  It was lunchtime and the children were all seated and eating their nutritious lunches, prepared onsite, when we went in.  So much cuteness is hard to leave, but we were proving a distraction so headed out.

I encourage anyone who hasn't yet done a set-up to try and join us for one this year.  It really feels good to see how inexpensive and quickly we can transform a bare-bones apartment into a home.  Here are some pictures that give you a better example of what we did.  See if you can see some of your donations.

 A corner of the living room

 Bathroom #2

 Jon's bedroom

 The Master Bath

 Master Bedroom

 Brittany's Bedroom