Larry Hassett and Rebuilding Together's History

It was 1990 and Larry Hassett was running his hardware store in Marsh Manor when Lynn Edwards, one of the first volunteers of Rebuilding Together, came in and, "Wanted to know about buying a whole bunch of supplies," as Larry puts it. He got her the best deal he could - his cost. They spent time going over the catalogs (mind you back in 1990 these were paper catalogs, nothing computerized) Larry showing her how to see what his cost was, so she could stay within her budget. After about two years, she asked him if he would participate as a house captain. He agreed and oversaw the applications and the two to three projects per year.

One of his favorite projects early on was helping convert the interior of a house for a widow confined to a wheelchair. He described her showing them how she would fall out of her chair and crawl over to the commode and then lift herself up. He felt the great joy and satisfaction of doing that kind of work in the world for someone who truly needed the help.

At that time the organization was called Christmas in April and Larry helped oversee the applications and seek out sponsorships. Most houses back then received about $1,500 in sponsorship money and by 1995 he was reaching out to leaders on peninsula who would combine their efforts to raise both volunteers and sponsorship money. He was also often able to get manufacturers to flat out donate supplies. They were up to 15 or so sites per year, all houses, when they started to branch out.

Larry had become very good at running the programs, due to his vast hardware experience and his personal house-building project years before. So good, he wrote a book and developed a leadership class to train the house captains in the less obvious things to look out for - knowledge that previously had only come with experience - because many of the volunteers were not from the construction world. They were community leaders, city managers, non profit organizers. The more diverse the volunteer group became, the more rewarding Larry found the work. They could do more, with more people, and more sponsorships and better organization on the site. Under Larry's leadership, they were streamlined enough and had enough connections in the local community that when they needed a specific type of material, or a specific skill set, they could get it. He remembers needing a new floor on a project, and going directly to the owner of Circus Floors.

The program continued to expand and they began doing bigger commercial projects like the senior center in East Palo Alto, and the Peninsula Children's Center (now called Achieve Kids) and that's when Stanford got involved. With the Stanford team on board they could do really big things. Larry says that that was just, "The best thing the ever happened," for their ability to really make an impact. He says they were able to do things that just, "blew me away" in terms of scale and execution.

He tells the story of a day Anna Eshoo was assigned to his project, the same project Stanford was working on, and how much it all meant to everyone who was there that Stanford was participating. They brought 60 people, "All by themselves," and were able to install a commercial grade breaker in one day for the school.

In 2008, Larry and his sons bought Ocean Shore Hardware, the Hassett Hardware that is in Half Moon Bay. He found himself on six different boards, opening a new store and bringing his sons into the business and decided he had too many things on his plate. He stepped down from his role at Rebuilding Together, but Hassett Hardware still donates a large amount of supplies, at cost, to their efforts every year.

Hassett is currently working on a joint "Hardware Happy Hour" project to combine the needs of training all the volunteers with the resources available at our stores - both in material goods and in knowledgeable staff.

You keep your eyes peeled for more dates, times and location of those classes. I'm going to see if I can find Larry's leadership book.

- Jocelyn Lovelle