On October 16, the Lendlease volunteers were up early for You Dao’s family home renovation project.  You Dao worked closely with Lendlease to select the five neediest families with the most difficult living conditions, and to choose the volunteers who would donate their time and energy to the project.
Little Gu Aoyun lives in a greenhouse.  The floor is the earth, without a flat spot in it.  There is barely any furniture, all that there is was collected by the family from items discarded by others.  Clothes were just scattered on the bed, so there was hardly any space to rest or study.   Very dangerously, the space was hung with electrical wires dangling from the ceiling, which could have given dangerous shocks any time they were touched.  But after a hard day of work from the Lendlease volunteers, the space was transformed.  The electric wires were installed properly, ensuring the safety of the family and their children.  The team installed new lamps, and bedding and clothing were put away in neatly stacked boxes.  Two new desk with lamps were installed for the children’s study.  Mother Aoyun said she couldn’t imagine the transformation the volunteers brought to their home, and promised the children would make good use of the new desks to improve their studies.
Little Zhang Zihan’s home was nothing but an abandoned cottage, of about 20 square meters.  Warm sunshine streams through a south-facing window, but all the furniture was broken down, and only one of five kitchen drawers was working.  Everything was just strewn about, and all was badly in need of cleaning and organizing.  Lendlease volunteers working with this family brought simple furniture, kitchen supplies, a stove and lamps.  They brought milk powder for the children as well as books and puzzles – and desks at which the children could read and write.  Just a half-day’s work left the home new and full of love and warmth.
Little Zhu Mengchen’s  home is beside a pond.  It’s small and without much furniture, but it is clean.  The family is very poor – the bed was made from boards the father had picked up from construction sites.  A single gas burner served for a stove.  Lendlease volunteers arrived with a new mattress and stove, and fluorescent lamps which they installed for the family.  Everything was installed by noon when Mengchen’s father returned from the construction site where he works – and he invited the volunteers to have lunch with the family.  It was a simple but happy lunch that brought everyone closer together and Mengchen’s father saw off the volunteers with the belief the family’s lives will now be better.
Zhou Xiangming’s family of four lives in a 10-square-meter rented room, with no lighting or ventilation. His brother’s cough has just gotten better. The family of four sleeps in one bed, and the house was crowded with dangerous electrical wires and power strips. Lendlease volunteers worked together with the father to move out household waste and pieces of scrapped machinery – that got rid of the rats and the cockroaches. New wiring and electric sockets got rid of that safety hazard. And the volunteers brought along a new double bed and bunk beds for the children, along with a wardrobe and storage racks. The family of four now have their own beds and some space in which to relax. They left a bright and clean home, and a happy and much safer family.
We’re very grateful to Lend Lease volunteers under the leadership of Managing Director of Construction Steve Willett.They walked hand in hand with the migrant families we serve, working hard to provide better lives to people with little hope.  It just shows what a caring and socially responsible can do when it makes a commitment to social responsibility.  Thank you Lendlease.