Building on Hope Completes Nashua Police Sports League Project

It is often difficult to do the right thing under the best of circumstances. Life tends to get in the way of good, proactive actions despite the best of intentions. But the past nine months have made fundraising nearly impossible and made any kind of effort to “raise barns” even more difficult. This is where Building On Hope (BOH) comes in. They’ve just completed their most recent project, the Nashua Police Athletic League, but we’ll get to that topic shortly. First of all, a little bit about BOH.

Building On Hope was founded ten years ago with a very simple principle: to meet every two years, with an army of volunteers, and to renovate a non-profit facility. The first project was the White House of Easter Seals. This facility accommodates boys who for some reason cannot live with their families. BOH really invented itself on this project. The contractors and designers were contacted for help, and they in turn relied on their manufacturers and distributors for donations to increase their own time contributions, and the project was completed. They remodeled the kitchen, expanded the living space and built a basketball court in the backyard.

Many hands are doing light work. This is the phrase at the heart of BOH, and it has been true for 10 years.

The next project was Girls Inc. in Manchester. My previous job was in construction sales, and a few friends invited me to visit Girls Inc. just before the renovation started. I saw first-hand how important it was for these girls and young women to have a place where they could not only have a snack and help with their homework, but also fellowship with strong women who could help them. make sense of the world in which they walked. I didn’t need to convince to help. Girls Inc. was a tight schedule – aside from the landscaping, it was a total gut-to-stud reconstruction in two weeks. I know this sort of thing happens on TV all the time, but elsewhere it doesn’t.

I remember walking into a shared bathroom to measure countertops and seeing six Paradigm plumbers under six sinks, all apparently in a parody of a barking game run on the boardwalk. from New Jersey to finish plumbing the sink drains first. I remember showing up with stone counters for three rooms, and a designer running to the truck looking for a counter that somehow fell through the cracks. , and to have called the store to start manufacturing based on my conversation so that I can go to the store to get it later and bring it back the same day. Everything was done on time, and when the girls walked around the center for the first time with “oooohs” and “aaaaahs” and laughs and smiles, there was not a dry eye in the house. .

I would compare the camaraderie on a BOH building site to being backstage before a big show; everyone is doing their best for the greatest good and to make sure everything is perfect when the curtains go up. People bring retired parents or children to push a broom or paint a baseboard. Employees, who have been paid by generous bosses to work earlier in the day, return to complete the work in their spare time. Real Normal Rockwell, social contract, kind of American grassroots stuff. All this for people they’ve never met.

Two years later, Opportunity Networks was at the center. Opportunity Networks is committed to providing genuine professional opportunities and activities that promote life enhancing skills for adults with developmental disabilities and learned in the Greater Nashua / Souhegan Valley community. It turned out that the building was in need of love. Rocky, their chief visionary, has seen so much more than he can get. With the help of BOH, he was able to realize his vision, which included a fully interactive theater, library, art space, movement lab, computer room and even a ‘snoozelen room’ (don’t look for this on Urban Dictionary). The building was stripped of its steel poles and reassembled in a matter of weeks, with more opportunities than before.

In 2016 came the Manchester Police Athletic League Project, by far the most ambitious BOH company to date. Housed in the massive Michael Briggs Community Center on Beech Street, it presented a whole new set of challenges. The ceilings were very high, most of the HVAC equipment on the roof needed replacing (read: cranes) and the kids still came by every day. This was a cubic dollar project, and the BOH team responded with a team of people who focused on grant money.

Over a dozen interior designers were commissioned to work on their own rooms. Each designer was paired with a commercial general contractor, and given a budget and expectations – one way or another the gears all managed to become a very efficient machine. Climbing ropes were hung in the gym, new bathrooms were built for the common areas and a beautiful, light mural was painted on the outside of the building to let everyone know what was going on. in this corner of Beech and Lake.

In 2018, the council decided to help the Central New Hampshire Crisis Center in Concord. Housed in a 120-year-old building, it was far from optimal for housing multiple families, all with their own unique needs as they recovered from trauma. To add a layer of complexity, due to security and legal compliance concerns, the location could not be publicly disclosed.

The mission of the CCCNH is to empower individuals to make positive changes in their lives and become independent members of their community through services, including a 24-hour helpline, a shelter. emergency, court advocacy, hospital advocacy, forensic interview support, community education, legal referrals and support. groups. The CCCNH served 1,184 people, answered 4,950 phone calls and provided 2,991 room nights in 2017 alone, but the demand for shelters is high and the CCCNH was forced to turn away 319 women and children in a single year due to capacity limitations.

Once again, designers and builders have partnered up on parts and invited to work their magic. Favors were called, tender cords were drawn, sleep was lost, tears flowed, and the building was stripped down to its bones and rebuilt in a matter of weeks. Following the renovation of Building on Hope, which ended up being part of the building, the shelter’s capacity nearly doubled from four rooms with 13 beds to seven rooms with 23 beds. In total 17 rooms have been renovated and the house has been fitted with a brand new security surveillance system, mechanical system with heating and air conditioning, windows, exterior cladding, interior flooring and is now Wheelchair accessible with an elevator to the porch and an ADA Compliant Kitchen, Bath and Bedroom. Most of the rooms in the house are survivor bedrooms furnished with serene colors, new bedding, custom shelving, desks, and storage space.

All of this brings us to 2020. Everyone’s favorite year. And by everyone, I mean Jeff Bezos and The Waltons (my favorite digital band). A year when people did not attend gala fundraising events. A year when fear grew more in his ugly and intrusive head, and phrases like ‘fund the police’ and ‘the thin blue line’ have been used as casually as comments on sporting events that don’t. have never happened. A year when so many people died that many people began to think primarily or only of themselves. But BOH sort of transcended all of that.

My friend Dave Waldman, who has offered his videography services to BOH for eight years, described the impact of the pandemic on the renovation of the Nashua Police Athletic League: “What started as a 10 day project has gone turned into an almost 10 month project. It was strange operating under the Covid cloud, but almost everyone stuck with us to complete the project. ”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLE3lOW6TF0

The Nashua Police Athletic League serves thousands of children, most of whom live in poverty. Programs include, but are not limited to: The Mother’s Garden, in partnership with Grow Nashua, located on the Rail Trail between Ash Street and Vine Street, which is offered as free garden space; athletics like street hockey, cheering, boxing, soccer, cross country; school assistance and tutoring; and mentoring and community involvement. Simply put, every time a cop teaches a kid how to be successful, the world wins. The Nashua Police Athletic League is an incubator for such experiments. In a neighborhood that needs love, for children who thirst for guidance, this is exactly what is needed.