Nearly 150 volunteers helping transform 12 Cedar Rapids homes

CEDAR RAPIDS - The five-letter last name 'Chase” sits above the front door of Edith Chase's 122-year-old home in southwest Cedar Rapids.

In the front lawn, a tiny house perched on a pole - 'Grandma's Free Reading Library” - contains books for neighborhood children and families.

Chase, a staple in the Taylor neighborhood is hoping to add a free food pantry soon.

But that isn't the only change coming to her house of roughly 27 years. Over the course of this week, Chase's home is being renovated as part of Matthew 25's second annual Transform Week.

Matthew 25 is a nonprofit organization based in Cedar Rapids aiming to elevate neighborhoods on the west side of town.

Entering its second year, Transform Week, is a volunteer-based initiative that works to fix up houses through a variety of activities, including yardwork, fence repair, floor reconstruction, painting and demolition.

For Chase, Matthew 25 is repairing her front porch, replacing several windows around the house and repainting the exterior, among other things.

Eden Youngberg, development and communications coordinator for Matthew 25, said Chase's house is the biggest project volunteers are working on this week.

In selecting the dozen houses receiving some TLC this week, Youngberg said several factors played a role.

'We looked at income level being below the median income level. We looked at whether or not you were in the Taylor neighborhood, the southwest side of Cedar Rapids, and we also looked at the need,” Youngberg said. 'From there, we committed to 12 projects.”

The next step was calling for volunteers.

Youngberg said 147 volunteers signed up, with an average of about 90 per day spread across the dozen locations - some taking morning shifts and others working in the afternoon.

Andy Sullivan, a team leader at Chase's home and director of employee relations at Ingredion - the company helping present Transform Week - said this his first year volunteering as part of the effort.

'Ingredion has a long tradition of community service, volunteering, trying to help our neighbors,” he said. 'Transform Week encompasses exactly what our values are and what we want to do.

'They're concentrating on homes in the southwest side in need of some help and we feel that the southwest side is our neighborhood.”

Youngberg said one of the restoration projects largely has to do with landscaping - Matthew 25 is building a ramp for a veteran who lost his leg to cancer so that his backyard is more accessible.

'The scope of work is (huge),” Youngberg said.

Chase, as she sat outside her home Tuesday afternoon crocheting a shirt for her daughter and watching her grandson play on his tricycle, said she has been 'just totally surprised” about all the work volunteers are putting into her home.

'I know she'll last now another 50, 100 years,” Chase said of her home.

Transform Week continues through Friday. Volunteers are still able to sign up by contacting Matthew 25 at info@hub52.org or by calling (319) 362-2214.

l Comments: (319) 368-8531; alexandra.connor@thegazette.com