Lakers Organization & HabitatLA make a difference in South Gate

So I had the honor to work with two amazing Organizations last weekend, The Los Angeles Lakers and Habitat of Humanity. HabitatLA is a great organization that goes all over the world assisting people in need of a home. This was their first time working together and it happened here in South Gate, Ca.

All of this took place on San Luis Ave. and it started at 8:00 AM Saturday morning.  As soon as I got there I was welcomed with open arms by the Laker Organization. Right away I got an awesome t-shirt that had the world famous Laker emblem and said "Team Up". As I looked around to see who else is volunteering I noticed two Laker Girls were there, which I was surprised considering there was a Laker Game the night before.

I also noticed everyone eating the complimentary Muffins and apple juice that was there. So I thought to myself, who am I to neglect a nice homemade muffin. Then soon after we had a safety talk and then they were giving out jobs. First Job up, to build a picnic table from scratch. I volunteered and to my surprise the laker girls volunteered to do the same job soon after.

So there we go, that was my team for the day, Laker girls and a retired engineer, "Jerry," and myself. We got our tools soon after and our materials followed. We got started with some cuts on a radial saw and soon after we had to put these pieces of wood together and create a table. While we were working outside, there were people working on the inside, mostly breaking tile and doing some much needed demolition work on this foreclosed home.

What HabitatLA is doing in this case is fixing this foreclosed home and selling to a worthy family at 0 percent interest. That is amazing! Here is the website for more info http://www.habitatla.org/ .  As we were sawing away a certain buzz came about the home. I knew someone had just arrived. It was no other than LAKER legend AC GREEN aka The Iron Man.

I knew he was a good citizen and a good human being but wow did he work! The Laker Girls Jennifer and Anncell told me that he shows up to almost all charity events. But, he doesn't just make an appearance I actually saw him sweating and throwing away all the trash from the inside of the house! I have a new respect for this great man. I also saw him speaking to the neighbors and giving the kids some great advice.

The Laker girls were also great, we worked together on the table the whole day with a small break in between. They really wanted to get this table done because all the volunteers were going to sign the table and give it to the new homeowner with a nice message.

Soon after FOX11 news showed up and took some good footage of what was going on in our city! I spoke to a representative named Stephanie from HabitatLA and she said that South Gate and Lynwood as well as Long Beach all have grants so they are going to be around for a while. So of course I gave her my business card and asked her to keep me in the loop.

There are a lot of great programs out there that we don't know about, and I think its time to start doing some research because the government is tryng to help us, its just up to us to find this help. Its not always going to be on the news. We need to take initiative and do some research of our own.

I spoke to a few Partner owners that just moved into their Habitat Home and they were so excited about moving into a place they could call home. Dulce, a new homeowner, gave a speech and it really showed how much she appreciated HabitatLA. She volunteers all the time.

Big things are happening in our city and I hope to shine some light on them.

 

Jorge D. Acuna

Realtor

Jorgedacuna@gmail.com

www.Acunarealty.com