Gazebo Construction Project St Andre’s Health Care Facility

02/27/2020

Council: 12941 - BIDDEFORD

Project Description:

Gazebo Construction Project St Andre’s Health Care Facility Date July 1—3, 2019

Respecting Life from conception to natural death.

4 Knights 72 Hours –
The Brother Knights of our council were enthusiastic about making a monetary donation to this good cause when we first heard about it. We all agreed that the Knights of Columbus sponsored gazebo was a wonderful feature of the proposed Memory Garden to be constructed at St Andre Health Care Facility in Biddeford. St Joseph Council 12941 made our $ donation but it didn’t seem enough, especially since St Andre’s is just across town from where out council meets. It is dear to our hearts as a place where our own family members and Brother Knights have stayed. We wanted more involvement. So we local Knights took the opportunity to volunteer to put up the gazebo when the ground was prepared for its placement.
In July, we got going. Luckily for us, the gazebo came as a prefab kit from its Amish makers. (We may be handy, but building an 8 sided structure from scratch is out of our league!) We measured, placed posts and formed the gazebo uneventfully up to where the roof line began. That’s where things began to get a bit dramatic. The gazebo roof came in 8 pie shaped sections that came together way up high and had to join evenly along the sides so that all pieces would fit. For a while, we wondered how and if we could solve the assembly puzzle. The first and last roof sections were the biggest challenges. The first because we weren’t quite sure if we could keep it from falling in onto our heads, the last because we needed to wiggle pieces around to get it to fit in the remaining opening overhead. The secret to success turned out to be adjusting the height of the roof sections in the middle till all angles matched, which evened all the wedges out and allowed us to bolt everything securely. After the roof was up, we were back in familiar territory, cutting shingles, nailing and sweating profusely the rest of the way until finished. Everyone was happy with the results of this project—ST A HCF staff and residents even more than we were.