A leaky roof and a broken heater might not sound like a big deal, but when you're an 80-year-old widow and winter is fast approaching, they are.
A group of UF students and local volunteers fixed those issues over the weekend.
Students from UF's School of Building Construction and Rebuilding Together North Central Florida repaired a local resident's roof as a part of National Rebuilding Day.
About 45 students worked on the roof Friday and Saturday.
Tiffany Herring, a 20-year-old building construction junior, was one of them.
"A lot of construction is problem solving and things don't go wrong in the book," Herring said. "Working in the field is a good chance to fix things when they go wrong."
Students studying construction must complete community service related to their major. Rebuilding Together allows them to do that while using their skills from the classroom.
"If projects are brought to [our] attention, somebody will do it," she said.
Only 40 students will go through the two-year program together.
"Projects like this do make you family. ... Rinker has always been family-oriented," she said.
Rebuilding Together started as a group of college students and high school friends working together on the east side of Gainesville.
"We focus on the health and safety issues in the house," said Melisa Miller, 29, executive director of Rebuilding Together.
Originally, the group of friends called themselves "Rebuilding Gainesville," until they found out there was a national organization with the same name.
Miller graduated in 2005, and in 2008, she and her friends became a part of Rebuilding Together, she said.
"The point is connecting the community to the community," she said. "We're here to connect those who have a need to those who can fill a need."
She said more than 3,000 volunteers sit in the organizations database on retainer and 325 to 350 homes are on a waiting list at any time.
"We could do more," she said, "but we need more construction-field volunteers to oversee the sites."
Curle Irving, 80, who has dementia, lives in the house that was repaired Saturday.
Her son, Clyde Irving, 47, a retired employee of Gainesville Regional Utilities, takes care of his mother especially since her stroke in February.
The house has been in the Irving family since 1976. Clyde Irving said the heater is original to the house.
Irving's father served in the Korean War, which is why Sears' Heroes at Home helped to co-sponsor the repair of the roof.
Irving said the last words his father told him were, "Take care of your mother."
Irving said he knew he needed to take care of his mother - even with arthritis in his knees and ankles.
"I really believe if I left her in a nursing home, she wouldn't be here," he said. "I have to live through that pain and take care of her."
