Louise Hokanson is a young 94-year old. She has lived in the same house since 1945. She lives alone and still manages to care for her roses, dog, two turtles and a cat. While the home is in need of repair, Louise raised her family in this house and will never leave.
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This is where McCarthy stepped in to help. Joyce Williams and Amanda Corbert teamed up to make this project a reality. Joyce used to live next door to Louise.
About 20 members of McCarthy’s Newport Beach office put on their Heart Hats and scraped and painted the entire house, installed a new security screen door, window screens, new back door, heavy landscaping, demolition of debris that has been collected since the 1900′s, new security lights on each side of house and bought a new gliding chair and plants for her front porch. We also replaced and painted a handicap ramp and handrail in the back of the house.
On top of that we replaced Louise’s mailbox and doorbell.
“I think it’s wonderful,” said Hokanson, who has lived alone since her husband passed away 20 years ago. “It wouldn’t have been done if it weren’t for them.”
Corbet coordinated employees and sought out donations from subcontractors and other organizations for materials to use for the project.
Often the Heart Hats program work on buildings belonging to community organizations, but this year the company decided to focus on houses.
“We really wanted to help out individual members of the community,” Corbet said.
Project director John Staff said employees really enjoy taking part in the “Heart Hats” program.
“Companywide, there is just a lot of satisfaction the employees get from this,” said Staff, director of Education Services for McCarthy. “And they enjoy working together outside of the daily grind.”
About McCarthy Heart Hats
The McCarthy “Heart Hats” community involvement program is dedicated to encouraging, supporting and recognizing McCarthy employees’ volunteer efforts in a variety of causes to ensure real needs are being met in communities where employees work, live and play. McCarthy employees are as passionate about building better communities as they are about construction. In addition to recognizing outstanding employee volunteers and providing a company-wide paid volunteer day, McCarthy “Heart Hats” donates countless hours of in-kind services and monetary contributions to improve communities each year.
Founded in 1864, McCarthy Building Companies, Inc. is one of the nation’s oldest and largest commercial construction companies. McCarthy is 100 percent employee owned. More information about the company is available online at www.mccarthy.com.
