Extreme Teams Spotlight : Ginger
Ginger Gruber - Survey Team
What is your story about how you got involved in Extreme Community Makeover?
Before I got involved with ECM I had met Angela a few times. She was a friend of a friend. In 2014 I volunteered to do an ECM Work Day with my church. Because I spoke Spanish I got assigned to work with the Survey Team. At the Work Day, Angela asked me if I would like to be more involved with ECM by being part of the Extreme Teams. I had NO interest in that! I volunteered with my church again in 2015 and this time when Angela asked me if I would join the Extreme Teams I said, “Yes!”.
Why are you on the Survey Team?
I am on the Survey Team because I speak Spanish and we need Spanish speakers to go door-to-door in the assigned neighborhood two weeks before the actual Work Day in order to sign interested neighbors up for a work project on their home. I enjoy talking to the neighbors and explaining what ECM does in order to get them to sign up. I also enjoy working with the volunteers who are going to be working on the actual Work Day. It makes me feel like I have skin in the game even before the day starts.
What do you enjoy most about being the team leader?
I appreciate being the team leader on the Survey Team because it gives me a chance to get to hang out and encourage the members on my team.
What is a memorable experience from an ECM Work Day?
My favorite part of an ECM Work Day is seeing how all of the volunteers and ECM team members work together to make the Work Day - work! That’s all thanks to Angela. I also enjoy working with other ECM team members, getting to know them, and establishing year-to-year friendships with them.
If you had one sentence to describe what ECM is about, what would you say?
Here’s a quote from a feedback form that one of the older neighbors that we helped wrote after the ECM volunteers helped her with a project in her yard:
“Thanks so much to the wonderful young people that helped me in my yard. I could never have done the work because I am 80 years old and cannot lift heavy things. I feel so proud of the way my house looks now. You have restored my faith in humanity.”
That’s what I think ECM is about.