By Lillian Alford
On Sunday, March 6th I embarked on a short adventure to Vineland, New Jersey with fourteen others to work on a house with Habitat for Humanity. In the beginning, we weren’t acquainted with one another as well as I had been on other service trips. This was my fifth service trip but little did I know it would be very different from my previous experiences. I would be learning a new skill, our task was to put siding on a house as oppossed to my previous experience with roofing and decking. Placing siding sounds simple, but there’s more to it. A starter piece needs to be cut and hammered at the base of the house before proceeding. Then, pieces of siding need to be measured and cut to be snapped and hammered into place. Luckily, we had about ten people working on the siding and then the other five were working on the shed. The shed was partially built when we arrived, however, there were no doors or roof on it. It was up to these five to put the doors up and get the roof squared away.
Throughout the week, we got to knw our team leadrs and adults and formed special bonds with one another. Our project manager, Tom Baxter made the week extra fun by telling us tall tales about himself or friends and cracking jobs. Overall, the week was very productive considering we sided the whole house (what we could reach) and almost finished the whole shed, roofing and all. To finish off this incredible trip, we went to Busy Bees, a local craft studio. There, we painted an African landscape with giraffes and trees. It was a beautiful way to end a beautiful trip!
I had a wonderful experience on my trip and would encourage any students considering a Spring Break Service Trip to take advantage of the opportunity!