Volunteers Ready New Milwaukee House of Studies for Resident Scholars!

Volunteers painting at Thrive For Life’s Milwaukee House.

The following is an article prepared by Christa Pipitone, one of Thrive For Life’s lead volunteers in Milwaukee readying our new house for resident scholars entering later this fall. We are grateful for all Christa and her team have done to get us started!

Here's the article with some improvements and broken up into paragraphs:

Back in February, when I accepted the challenge of being the volunteer project manager at Thrive for Life House of Study in Milwaukee, I was confident in my abilities to turn the almost 10,000 sq. ft house into a home. I had only seen the house one time when I accepted, and after seeing it a second and third time, I wondered what I had gotten myself into! Like the man that God told to push the rock for Him, I started to push.

My first rock was to get all the old furniture, office desks, and filing cabinets out so I'd have a clean slate to begin the transformation. Who was going to help me move desks from the 3rd floor, file cabinets from the 2nd floor, and bring the sleeper sofa up from the basement to the community room? Keep pushing, keep pushing.

The next rock was 50 gallons of paint and 40 plus volunteers to help actually paint. Keep pushing Christa, keep pushing. A few weeks passed, and I hadn't moved the rock even an inch until my niece, Meg, who had heard about what I had undertaken, called me and said, "I have people who want to help." Enter Evolve Church. Rock lifted!

I met with Pastor Charmon and Meg, who is Evolve's volunteer coordinator. We toured the house, and I talked about Thrive for Life's mission and everything we provide for our scholars. I also shared my vision for the house. I told them of a home where our scholars feel seen, valued, and loved. A place that is a safe haven for them while they live here but also as a home they come back to for comfort, support, and camaraderie. Pastor Charmon and Meg understood and were equally as excited as I was.

Pastor Charmon and the Evolve community have been incredible partners. Within days, I had 15 men from Evolve and The Promise Keepers come and move all the furniture around from floor to floor. Amazing! Next up was the outside. The flower beds had turned into weed beds, and there was garbage and debris all around. Again, the dedicated Evolve community showed up with rakes and brooms in hand to clean up the outside.

Everything was going smoothly, but many weeks had passed, and I still had no paint. Keep pushing, keep pushing Christa. Then, 3 Sundays ago at Evolve church, a community member, "Ham," happened to hear one of the pastors mention Thrive House and our need for paint. The very next day, Meg connected me with Ham, and the rest is history. Ham, who is a painter, got us his discount, and Sherman Williams gave us another discount on top of that! Again, the rock was lifted.

Finally, on Saturday, May 18th, 50 incredible Evolve volunteers showed up to paint, and they brought with them AJ Green, one of our Milwaukee Bucks players, and his wife, Kaylee. We got the second and third floors done so we can begin to get the bedrooms ready for our scholars. Evolve plans on coming back and painting the first floor as well!

God asks us to push the rock; that's all we have to do, and when the time is right, He will move the rock! So, I keep pushing, every day.