At the halfway mark, Mrs. Peets’ house has already been cleaned and prepped, and volunteers have begun to make progress on the repairs.

Jason Biddle, a member of Rebuilding Together’s Board of Directors, said everyone is pleased with the quick pace and amount of work that has taken place, especially for only a half-day’s work.

Biddle and several other volunteers have been working hard to repair Mrs. Peets’ back porch.

“We’ve been removing an old deck,” Biddle said. “It wasn’t set in correctly, so it didn’t have support underneath it.  We’ve been taking out old wood and replacing it with new, treated wood.”

After working for Rebuilding Together for almost six months, Biddle has enjoyed participating in the builds because of the organization and volunteers’ shared sense of community.

“In these type of settings and environments, a lot of times these people are pulling themselves up by their bootstraps,” Biddle said. “As a community, our purpose and goal is to come together—individuals coming together to accomplish a common goal for someone who has no other resource. It’s fun to see a group of people come together for someone they don’t even know.”

The volunteers from Rebuilding Together have teamed up with Sears employees as part of the Heroes at Home program.

Richard Catapano, Sears’ district manager for retail and sales throughout the Nashville area, started working with Rebuilding Together last year in an effort to help out after the May floods.

Catapano said the company enjoys being involved in the community that supports it.

“It’s good to give back to the community,” Catapano said. “As a retailer, we depend on the health of the community for our health. We have to recognize that a good community pays back, and we want to be a part of that.”

Sears and Catapano respect the mission of Rebuilding Together, as well as their partnership, and look forward to continuing to work together.

“It’s a great organization,” Catapano said. “I love the fact that it gets out and helps a large group of families to get their feet back on the ground. What we’re doing today would take months if not years to do. [Rebuilding Together] is kind of the glue that holds everyone together.”

The team has made progress on the back deck, window repairs, cleaning and organizing the attic, as well as several bathroom repairs.

For photos, video and other updates on today’s build, check out our Twitter and Facebook pages.

To see an update on the progress, watch the video below.