When you think of spring break, your first thoughts are usually what you are going to do with all of your friends back home. Break is the time to catch up with friends or just hang out at home and relax for a week. However, that is not what Habitat for Humanity did this spring break. Instead, they went on a trip to Port Huron, Michigan to give back to the community and help out with some members of the Blue Water Habitat for Humanity. This wasn’t a typical spring break, but I would definitely do it again. Here’s a little recap of Habitat’s trip to Port Huron!
Day 1: Restore
The first day of volunteering started for ⅓ of our group at the Blue Water Restore. At this site we helped to clean out shelves, unload boxes of items, and organize items on the shelves. The overall idea was to make sure everything had a place that made sense in the store. We also had to scrap metal while trying to clean out the tool section full of mismatched bolts and pieces. Before going on this trip, I didn’t know that Habitat for Humanity did anything else besides going on builds and it was such a nice change to try doing something different to help the community.
Day 2: Warehouse
The warehouse had almost anything you could think of, but needed to be cleaned and organized. At this site, groups loaded trucks with doors, siding, or anything that had to be transported over to the Restore. We also cleaned out the many shelves and organized tools, throwing away anything that did not work anymore. If you have ever tried loading a truck with supplies just imagine it like a game of tetris, but with heavy objects that don’t move easily. This was a first for me, but with an awesome group of people we managed to load everything and form a pretty efficient assembly line to unload everything.
Day 3: Algonac House
At this house we got to meet the family that will be living in it once it is complete. We had members going into a crawl space under the house to lay down visqueen. Flooring was put down along with insulation in the walls. Paneling was unloaded from a truck and siding was glued onto a wall using caulking. If you’re feeling frustrated or stressed about anything, I recommend using the staple gun to keep the insulation in place. It was fun and interesting to learn how to use the caulking gun as well. However, the caulk continually leaks out of the gun so you have to move fast while applying it, or it goes everywhere and just becomes one big mess!
Day 4: Free Day
During their spring break trips, Habitat tries to have one free day. On this day some of us went to visit the Detroit Institute of Art and walked around. It was amazing to have a day to relax and just be able to get to know each other more. However, some people had a little more exhilarating of a day as they went to Canada to go axe throwing. I didn’t actually know axe throwing was an activity, but everyone that went had nothing but good things to say about it and I thought it was pretty awesome that they got to experience something so different.
Habitat members axe throwing in Sarnia,Canada
Day 5: Melvin House
As our last day of the week the entire EC Habitat group worked together at this site. This house needed to have staples ripped out, wires cut, and flooring taken up. Additionally, some other debris needed to be cleaned up. It was great being able to work alongside the woman who would be receiving this house through Habitat as well. Working at the Melvin house was one of my first times ever working to help build a house. Through this I learned so many new things, but my favorite by far was using the crow-bar to pull up the wood tiling of the floor.
Overall, this experience was so rewarding and it was great to do something for the community. Not to mention, I got to make so many new friends and meet inspiring members of the Blue Water Habitat Mission. I am happy to say that I have learned a few new things about building houses, and I hope to learn more in the future by going on local builds with Habitat. I thought it would be weird to volunteer my spring break with a group of people I really did not know, but instead I was rewarded with new friendships and the feeling of knowing I did something this break to help others.
Francesca Trombino describes her spring break saying, “It was such a humbling and exciting experience. Especially since we were able to see and take part in all of the forms Habitat gives back to the communities. Before the trip I didn’t know that the Restore was a part of Habitat’s operation.”
So if you ever feel like giving back and don’t want to wait until next spring break, come join Habitat on a mission trip locally in the Boston and Worcester area!