Rebuilding Together

Recently, The Epstein Community Foundation(ECF), a not-for-profit charity formed by Epstein employees, participated in an event with Rebuilding Together, a nationwide charity organization that focuses on improving living conditions for qualified applicants. For those of you not familiar with Rebuilding Together, think 'Extreme Makeover Home Edition', but with fewer TV cameras and way better looking construction members! Especially in those rain ponchos!

This year, the homeowner that the ECF helped was a grandmother who lives in Chicago's Austin neighborhood in a home that she shares with her son and three grandchildren. From the very beginning, it was clear that she tries her best to promote a loving and supportive environment to her son and grandchildren in particular. On April 30th, otherwise known as National Rebuilding Day (NRD), the ECF team went in a performed many repair/replace tasks within the house in order to make the home she has built warmer, safer, drier, and, most importantly, improving on the quality of life. This included a renovation of her kitchen, two bathrooms, landscaping, grandkids room, and many other tiny projects. The main projects were the renovations of the kitchen and the grandkids room.

Kitchen - Before & After

In the kitchen, the ECF replaced the sink/faucets, counter top, flooring, reset cabinets, painted, and replaced her old gas stove and refrigerator with new appliances graciously donated by Whirlpool. In the grandkids room, we replaced the old carpet, painted, and provided new beds, desks, dressers, and shelving for the each grandchild. In addition, Epstein's Ryan Lezcano, graciously donated laptops for all three kids for their use on their schoolwork.

Grandkids Bedroom - Before & After

The ECF Team would like to thank the efforts of all the volunteers on both NRD and the other days that we worked on the house. In addition, the ECF would like to thank Ryan, team leaders Sam Helgeson and Jake Effinger, Criss Paccione-Anderson, our rebuilding team comprised of Trish Taylor, Jim Jirsa, Will Owen, Mark Rustin, Cassiday Love, Tom Smiles, Michael Shepherd, Linda Kanoski, Rachel Nava, Hedaia Ahmad, Taylor Mack, Joe Bouley, Bill Cihon, Will Ernst, Sean Miller, Greg Osborne and Jeremy Wright, the volunteer tradespeople, the Rebuilding Together organization, Whirlpool, and any other person that we may have left out.

Backyard - Before & After

The homeowner loved the work that we did on her house, so much as admitting that she was very close to moving out because of the state of disrepair the house was in. We're just happy that the grandkids are enthusiastic about their new room, and that we were able to help keep a loving family in their home by assisting with improvements that might not otherwise have happened.