Milk Project building progress

I am sure I would not have anticipated us being where we are with the Milk Project building at the beginning of this year.  We had some big donations that enabled us to keep going, and keeping Rolando in full time employ through the end of the year, and the other guys for at least six months...maybe more?!

It is hard to believe it is taking so long...and yet hard to believe how fast it is going.  Groups have been a huge help as well.  With the donations, we were hoping we would be able to have a poured floor by the end of the year.  That floor should be poured in the next few weeks.  Just getting the floor prepped (metal base, rebar mesh, wood base supports, and the forms for the sides) takes a while.  

There are actual stairs now from the lowest "basement" to the middle basement, which makes going up and down easier, who would have thunk it.  Quite a few of those little things done recently, like filling in, removing rocks, getting things to a proper level.  

We should still have enough funds to dig the septic tank and get the stairs from the basements to the "real" first floor before the end of the year, and then we will regroup to see what we can do in 2017 without groups, and what will have to wait for groups or more funding.   

Exterior walls will be the biggest priority of course, and then pouring the roof/second floor.  That would be our big goal for 2017...but more if we can of course!

Maria and Oscar have been working together (I am around as well on occasion) to plan the flow of the first floor of the building...bouncing ideas of each other, and then once we had the columns for the floors poured, we could actually go back and see what will fit where...and how (seen here we are figuring out how the stairs will have to fit given the space available.)  It is exciting to see that come together and take form, literally.  

We were concerned that there would not be much opportunity for windows in the building due to safety and what that would mean for temperature control...but thankfully now we are at floor level we can see that into the clinic/mission campus on that side that would get the most breeze anyway...we can put as many windows on that side of the building that we want.  

Continued thanks to everyone out there that is making this possible, and we ask your prayers as this continues...construction and the project itself for how it will grow in different ways, and how it will be able to use this building to do even more for the children in our area.