A safe deck, courtesy Home Repairs Program

Before Wednesday, Kim Mayo’s back deck was just barely standing. It was slowly coming off the concrete wall of her house, and it moved when anyone walked on it.

“It’s amazing that it never fell,” said Mayo.

Now, thanks to the Kahnawake Home Repairs Program - the pilot project that stems from a collaboration between Habitat for Humanity Quebec and PlanIt Consulting - Mayo, her daughter, and her grandchildren, will be able to safely access the house from the backyard, with the deck and staircase being replaced free of charge by 12 female volunteers from the Broccolini company, who are part of a special division within the company.

Mayo spoke to PlanIt’s founder Charleen Schurman about her deck, and when Habitat for Humanity Quebec came to take a look, they saw that it was even more dangerous than it looked.

“I didn’t really think anything of it,” said Mayo, who thought they might have been able to push it back into place. That was not to be, and Mayo signed up for the Home Repairs Program, as she would not have been able to afford the repairs otherwise.

On Wednesday, Mayo was very excited to see the volunteers work to make her home safer.

“It’ll be 100 times safer than what it was. There would have been maybe two or three people on that deck before it would have come down, and now it’s safe - there’s six of them up there now,” said Mayo, pointing to volunteers working on the deck.

She has big plans for her newly accessible space.

“I literally can’t wait to use it. We already have some chairs we can put up there, we can have a table up there, we can have a barbecue up there. We can do something up there without being terrified,” said Mayo.”

It’s also a question of safety for her family, who will be moving in with her to support her, including her grandson, who is autistic and who she was worried could have gotten hurt going out the back door onto the deck.

Habitat for Humanity Quebec will return in the coming months to do more renovations on her home, including repairs on her basement and installing a deadbolt on her back door, she said.

“This is what Habitat does. We help people become homeowners, and we help homeowners stay in safe and healthy homes,” said Sophie Dalbec, executive director of Habitat for Humanity Quebec, who was on site for the repairs Wednesday.

Other qualified volunteers came to do demolition work on the old deck - Mayo’s daughter finished the job by pushing over the staircase, she said - and the group of volunteers from Broccolini came to assemble the new deck.

Playground Poker donated lunch for the volunteers, and the Onake Paddling Club provided some tents to give shade from the sun.

In just a few hours, the volunteers already had most of the deck up before lunch.

“It’s impressive, and it’s really heartwarming,” said Dalbec.

“When we have companies do good for the community, at the same time they’re doing good for their team spirit and corporate engagement, and ultimately helping families, it’s a win, win, win.”

Sarah Volstad works for Brocolini in the legal department and serves on their Female Empowerment Committee, which finds outreach opportunities for women in the company to give back.

She was impressed by how well the volunteers had been doing, considering most of them did not come from the construction side of the company.

“We’re having a lot of fun, and we’re doing something that’s going to be useful to someone,” said Volstad.

“It’s very fulfilling for us, and I really hope that it’s going to be very useful and fulfilling for the people using it.”

Mayo was impressed to see all the women on the job - so much so that she said she wanted to volunteer on future Home Repair Program projects in the community, too.

“That’s girl power,” said Mayo.

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