sound's not that bad of a construction site to me neither, lol.
the 'doing' often fails b/c of leak of the 'explaining/involvement of the effected'.
it is one of the most usual things on the planet that people do not care much or any about things given to them for free without any effort from their side.
that first touch behavior is very well known by experienced 'volunteers', everywhere.
just to paint the wall of a school or cement the floor of a school yard doesn't mean that anybody learned anything about "do that stuff and do it again to help your community". it just means that some 'volunteers' do it, locals watch it and that's it. nothing done for the future of the barrio, the painting or cement floor will last it's time period and when worn out nobody will realize that it is time to do that again, and if somebody realizes that the Q would be:
where are the Volunteers?
to come over on vacation and 'Volunteer' for such jobs is mostly just 'doing a favor' to the lil community/benefiter, nothing else, aside of a 'volunteer feeling good about his/her action', and all is fine.
reel volunteer's help would be to sneak in a community and connect with the people of that community, to bring up with time 'together' the idea of needed actions and do them together, that's an important point, do that thingy together with the involved/effected people/community.
that's the only way a real learning/understanding process starts which can/hopefully does end in a 'selforganization' of that stuff for a area.
Mike