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GORI, Georgia — For the past month, the hallways of Gori Public School No. 4 were alive with the sounds of construction workers sanding, sawing, tearing down, building up and transforming what once looked like a century-old building.
The days following were much quieter as a team of U.S. Air Force and Georgian army engineers were still hard at work making their finishing touches. As the last coat of paint dried, local community members, teachers and students gathered in front of the school for the culminating ceremony to celebrate the project.
On Aug. 31, distinguished visitors from the U.S. Embassy in Georgia and Georgian officials celebrated the completion of the school restoration project, financed by the U.S. European Command and implemented by the Office of Defense Cooperation, U.S. Embassy to Georgia.
The humanitarian assistance project had a construction materials budget of $40,000 with the goal of supporting national military strategy and enhancing the operational readiness skills of military personnel while providing substantial benefits to host country populations.
For a little more than 30 days, the U.S. Air Force engineers worked side by side with their Georgian counterparts to completely renovate a gymnasium, install new toilets, fix and paint the walls of the first floor hallway and even build a completely new access ramp from scratch.
Many disabled children attend the school, so better access for those children was a top priority throughout the project.
Capt. Parnaoz Svanidze, headquarters, Georgian Land Forces, who assisted with many aspects including logistics and scheduling of the project, said one of the main focuses for the project was to renovate the school and attached gym for the children with disabilities because most of the disabled children that live in Gori attend Public School No. 4.
“I’m so grateful to work with Americans again,” Svanidze said, who served in Operation Enduring Freedom and worked side by side with U.S. Marines for six months in Afghanistan. “I like working with (the Air Force engineers) because they work really hard and know exactly how to do it. I can tell they do it from the heart because they know that everything they’ve done is for the children and for the future.”
During the ceremony, the sounds of the neighborhood school children could be heard throughout the crowd, laughing, giggling and whispering in anticipation. They were excited to see all the new updates to their school.
As the last words were spoken, and the crowd dispersed to take the grand tour, a group of kids weaved through the crowd and headed straight for the new gym.
“The gym in the school has been used as a safe haven for these kids in the neighborhood for years,” said Tech. Sgt. Brendan Allen, 435th Construction and Training Squadron and Georgia Humanitarian and Civic Assistance project manager. “When we got here the kids couldn’t even play here without pieces of the wall falling down on them. Now it’s safe.”
The gym has been completely redone. The floors and walls were completely remodeled; the basketball backboards replaced; new lighting was installed; and a fresh coat of yellow paint for the walls and white paint for the high ceilings were applied.
“This whole project has been an amazing experience,” Allen said. “My guys worked really hard the entire time. I don’t want to go, but I know we can leave here knowing we helped the children, and we can be proud of our work.”
This HCA project is roughly one of 15 projects that will be done this year throughout the European and Eurasian regions and has trained military engineers from the Army, Navy, Marines, active-duty Air Force, Reserve and National Guard forces in the past.
The team explained that their time spent in Georgia has been extremely rewarding and has given them an appreciation for hard work.
“It’s extremely impressive how hard the Georgian engineers worked,” Allen said. “Without their support, we definitely wouldn’t have been able to get as much done in that amount of time, and we’re extremely thankful for it.”
The children played basketball in their new gym until the sun set behind the mountains that overlook Gori. Although the crowd had cleared and their teachers were home, they lined the railing in front of the school, laughing, playing cards and just being together. They have their safe haven back, and it’s better than ever.
