Silicon Valley Bank has been a major financial contributor to Our Town St. Helena and is a shining example of a financial institution supporting our community. This team from Silicon Valley Bank’s Wine Division spent an afternoon at the Brenkle Court jobsite removing old fencing and breaking up concrete. This Read more…
Working five days/week plus more hard work each weekend leaves all of our Brenkle Court homeowners tired, but the overarching goal of home ownership keeps them motivated. “This is a dream come true. I’ll be able to live and work in the same town, and my son will grow up Read more…
Our Brenkle Court construction crew is learning on the job, becoming more comfortable with each new skill they master. Each construction lesson marks a milestone. The photo to the left captures the crew’s progress building walls. It illustrates four stages of wall construction. They lay out the 2×4’s in the Read more…
Last weekend, Brenkle Court homeowners reviewed basic carpenter skills and safety precautions. One woman confessed to a few sleepless nights worrying about what she’d gotten herself into when it took her two minutes of concentrated effort just to pound in one nail. Yet our crew gathered on another sunny but Read more…
Brenkle Court homeowners kicked off a cool October morning with shovels and wheelbarrows, distributing gravel around sewer pipes and what will be their driveways. Larry reviewed basic skills and safety precautions Project manager Larry Vermeulen planned the rest of the morning as a carpentry tutorial session to review basic skills and Read more…
The hottest weather of the summer, and our families were trenching for waste plumbing! Thankfully, this was the last digging project that we had to do. We used electric jackhammers to break the soil for the trenches. Because we still don’t have electricity, we used two generators, though we assured Read more…
Anai Ortiz: Born and raised in St. Helena Meet Anai Ortiz, homebuilder and native Californian. Anai’s grandparents immigrated to San Diego from Mexico as part of the Bracero program that dates back to WWII. There were farm-labor shortages caused by America’s entry into the war. The Bracero Program brought Mexican workers to Read more…
Last winter we built sawhorses in the Grace Episcopal Church parking lot. This was an exercise in using basic tools, but it was also a lesson in learning to work together. Now we’re putting those sawhorses to work on the job site! Coming up: Jackhammers and pouring concrete We dug Read more…
Construction began on July 13. For the next 18 months, our eight families and their teams will be working every Friday and Saturday at Brenkle Court. A few of our homeowners are single moms. One mother will be joined by her sons every weekend; another mother is relying on her Read more…