CAPPED owes its beginnings to the volunteer people and organizations who donated their time, hard work, and money to make us possible. This is how the CAPPED "puzzle" came into being; to solve the puzzle of cancer requires connecting all the pieces of the puzzle - youths, business partners,working people, senior citizens, civic heroes, and funding donations. These are all brought together by the pieces in the middle of the puzzle - representing YOU: our Volunteers. We have come a long way in the past couple of years, but there is still a long way to go. Until there is a cure, there will always be those who need education and assistance; your help can be invaluable to us. For information on making a donation, or volunteering, see the Memorials page, or contact Tresa at CAPPED.org. For now though, sit back and view the following photojournal of our new office's creation.....please note that the number of photos may cause slow loading if you are on a dialup connection, and this page should be viewed using a 1024 x 768 screen size for best reults.

This is our beginning group of volunteers - a daunting task was ahead of them.

The building we were moving into was very run down, and full of things that had to be moved as well. This phot was taken with over half of the contents already moved.

And if the main building area wasn't challenging enough, the utility area in the rear wasn't exactly encouraging, either.

After putting a few things in the storefront windows to let people know we were here (and to keep people from wondering if a bomb had gone off inside), we got to work.

After clearing the building completely, all the shelving and wall fixtures had to go.

Next, the old wooden floor had to go, as it was on the way out in a few spots already. As we uncovered various parts of the building, we began to discover that virtually every square foot needed rebuilding to some extent. In this photo you can see old, crumbling, brickwork behind the walls - reused bricks that dated from the turn of the century!

In the process of dismantling the interior, we ran into a few suprises, some in the form of bits of history. Here we found someone's discarded bottle cap collection beneath the floorboards, we'll probably never know why it was put there...

Of course, all the demolision filled the inside again, so this nice man carted it out to be dumped with his Bobcat mini-dozer, and carried infill dirt to level the floor for cementing. He found another hidden suprise: there was an abandoned crawlspace under the rotting floor of the utility area, which his bobcat fell into! Fortunately no one was hurt, and after some cleanup and reinforcing, we were able to proceed.

Thank goodness for all the volunteers who began appearing to help us out, as the number of repairs began to mount. Here, a work detail from the Otero County Jail did a fantastic job of putting in a new concrete floor for our building.

Once the new floor base was in, it was time for all the other work to begin. We began to get help from everywhere, which was good because we needed it everywhere. The photo insets (clockwise from top) show just a part of the helpers we had: roofers, plumbers, cabinet and wallpaper installers, carpeters, sheet rock experts, sign installers, and (center) electricians, to name a few!

The list of things that needed done seemed to go on and on; fortunately more and more people showed up to lend a hand, helping to install airconditioning, frame the new walls, and even a group from the County Detention Center to help with interior work.

Another potential nightmare was over our heads - all the ceiling tiles, and the heating/airconditioning ductwork above them, were literally coming down around our ears. This was probably some of the most difficult work to do as it all had to be done while balancing precariously.

NEXT ?

It seemed as if we would never come to the end of our "what's next?" list. But thanks to all the help we got, all the construction was finally completed. If you'd like to see how it all came out, click here!

CAPPED is a 501 (C) (3) Non-Profit Corporation
dedicated to solving the puzzle of cancer.