My second year project this past semester I participated in the Birmingham, Alabama Buck-I-Serv Habitat for Humanity trip. I had never participated in a Habitat or Buck-I-Serv trip before so I was definitely unsure what to expect.
The first day of work was mainly painting but I was able to work on making trim, cabinets, base boards, and a foundational post for the house we were working on. I really found that I liked this work much more than painting through the entirety of the trip.
Every day we went to a different site with new challenges at each house. On the last day we got to work back at our original house that we started with though and see all the improvement. Every group finished working at my site on the last day whether it was installing locks, laying tile, or placing sod down we all hustled to get this house ready for a new home owner.
I learned a lot of valuable and transferable skills about managing a house and building things needed for it. It was really cool to be thrown into a situation with no knowledge on anything and having the supervisor trust that you would do it right. This gave us a sense of responsibility and made us want to do the work the best we could.
We had attended a dinner one night where we were able to talk to people that were receiving houses built by Habitat and people that were already homeowners of Habitat homes and this was one of my favorite events. I talked to a homeowner and we learned that people who receive Habitat homes have to volunteer for 300 hours for Habitat! Also they still do pay for their homes, what they owe is determined by how much of their income is to the average salary and then that percentage is applied to how much they pay for the houses’ supply costs, the labor is free from the volunteers.
One sustainable thing Habitat is currently doing that I was able to take part in is refurbishing old homes and turning them into Habitat homes. This is awesome because it’s basically recycling a house! 2 out of the 3 houses we worked on were being refurbished. These houses were still a lot of work though because the tenants had been evicted and there was a ton of trash and furniture that needed to be thrown out and cleaned up. By flipping old homes and turning them into livable Habitat houses, Habitat for Humanity is cutting down on the supplies they need, reusing land instead of buying new land for a new home, and conserving laborious jobs that would otherwise needed to be done, like building a foundation which they pay professionals to do, not done by the volunteers.
Overall, I’m really happy I came on this trip. At times it was freezing (believe it or not, I think we brought the Ohio cold down with us) and at times I was tired and hungry, but seeing the impact I made just be giving up a week of my winter vacation was entirely worth it. My roommate wasn’t able to go on the trip last minute which freaked me out because I knew really no one else going personally but I quickly made new friends because if there’s one thing college students bond over it’s food and card games.
