What inspired you to start Buffalo Basic at 153 Eaton Street?

McNally: During the summer of 2008, I worked as an intern for Buffalo Reuse, a non-profit organization run by Michael Gainer that specializes in deconstruction. I got to know the neighborhood where 153 Eaton Street is located (the house is two doors down from Buffalo Reuse) by spearheading the community garden project and meeting people on the street. It’s such a depressed neighborhood but there are so many great people there. I wanted to do something for my Centennial Scholars Program project that would bring people together.

I was originally planning on creating another community garden, but then I started talking with the people in the neighborhood and realized that a lot of the houses are falling apart. They’re old Buffalo homes built in the 1900s and the people don’t have the means to pay professionals to come in and do the work. I thought, ‘Why don’t I just rehab a house and through that teach people how to fix up their own homes?’

What is the format for the workshops?

Yax: Each one is about an hour and starts with a talk about safety and then goes right into the personal demonstration. It varies by topic if the skill is demonstrated in full and then the participants are invited to try it or if each step is demonstrated and then folks are invited to try. Sometimes we have videos that help explain the produces and we also send the participants home with handouts that include safety tips, general tips, information about where to buy materials for the lowest cost, and contact information if they have questions.

Who teaches the classes and how do you recruit volunteers?

Yax: Family friends have helped; my father taught a workshop on painting. But we’ve also been quite fortunate to make a lot of acquaintances with professionals who are willing to help. The instructor for the insulation workshop was someone Megan met at a green building forum.

How much prior building and renovating experience did you have?

McNally: I knew how to use a hammer and a couple of power tools but that was it. I had volunteered for a few Buffalo Reuse deconstruction projects—but that was about taking things apart, which is a whole different game than putting them back together. What I’m doing to educate myself is taking a building restoration class at one of the local community colleges and reading lots of how-to books and watching YouTube videos. For the most part we try to get professionals to come in and teach the class, and then Whitney and I are able to learn the skills and teach similar classes ourselves.

Have any skills been easier to pick up than you expected?

Yax: Spray-foam insulation on an exterior wall. I’d always heard it was something that needs to be done by professionals, but it was actually extremely easy. Hanging drywall is also something that makes people nervous—I think because it’s heavy and you have to use a power drill. A couple of women came to that workshop and were very hesitant about trying it, but by the end of the workshop, they got their courage up to do it and it really wasn’t that hard.

McNally: The high attendance of women is something neither Whitney nor I really expected. There’s a whole stigma that women can’t do construction or home repair that is especially prevalent on Buffalo’s East side, where the house is, but because we are two young women doing home repair, they show up. They walk out saying, ‘I used a circular saw today’ and tell their friends that they know how to hang drywall. We’ve just seen such an amazing response from all the women in the neighborhood.

What are you doing, Whitney, now that you’ve graduated?

Yax: I’ve moved back to Buffalo from New York to work on Buffalo Reuse full-time for the summer. The goal is to finish the bulk of the rehabilitation by the end of the summer; we’ve been making good enough progress that we think we can do it. In the fall, Megan will go back to school for her last year, and I will be working at PUSH, People United for Sustainable Housing. What’s great about Buffalo is that folks are extremely supportive and PUSH is really supportive of my work with Buffalo Basics so Megan and I are hoping to continue the project part-time in the fall.

What happens once you’re finished with the rehabilitations?

McNally: Our long-term plan for the house is to make it into an example of all the different technologies that you can use in your home. In one room we’re installing radiant heating and then will cover it clear Plexiglas so people can see what it’d look like if they retrofitted their house with a radiant-heating system. We’re also exploring installing green technologies, like solar energy and solar water heating systems, to show people about that. I think Buffalo is sometimes stuck in the 1900s and really needs a boost into today’s green job economy.