Taking a break to help others

This past week was spring break for the University of Texas.  Several students chose the party all day route, while others took a road trip as an alternative.  But for almost 10 Longhorn students, the opportunity to help out a community in need was how they wanted to spend their week off of school.

“As a college student, you don’t have a lot of time to volunteer when you are taking classes,” senior Ilya Cuperman said. “Other people are partying and having fun, but anyone can do that.”

Cuperman was one of many Longhorn students that traveled all the way to Milton from Texas to help build houses for the Habitat for Humanity through the programs' Collegiate Challenge.  On Wednesday, they took on the job of laying down shingles and siding for a 1,200 square foot house on Byrom Street. 

Jim Salter, the head supervisor for the Habitat project said over the past three weeks, several college students have come out as part of an alternative spring break program to do community volunteer work.

“This is the third house they’ve (colleges) built this month,” Salter said. “That’s one house a week”

Instead of putting on sunscreen, the group strapped on tool belts, put on some work gloves and grabbed a hammer to help build local Habitat houses, which Carolyn McCray, a Habitat chair helped organize.

“Habitat really depends on our volunteers to help keep the payments for the mortgages down,” McCray said.

The Habitat program, which is built mostly of volunteers helps put low-income families into a house with a low mortgage payment.

“This program depends on these volunteers, and we were able to give the school a call, and they had several students who wanted to participate,” McCray said.

Despite not being the best work weather, the students helped construct the house in the 50 degree weather.  Wednesday was their third day on the project.

Lucy Alejos, a University of Texas volunteer admitted that she wouldn’t trade this spring break for any other, and said she had enjoyed her time helping out the local community.

“The volunteers here really don’t want the typical spring break,” Alejos said. “This is a good opportunity to come out and help a community, and at the same time, have fun doing it.”

With the foundation up, and the shingles going on, the house was scheduled for completion by the weekend.  Salter said that the house, despite the weather was well underway for completion on time.

Salter said the students were able to get a lot of free time in once the project was completed, and there was a lot of free food, a college student must, to feed their appetite at lunch.

“We have had a lot of the local organizations donate food for these students since they’re doing such a good job,” McCray said.  “I’m excited to see so many people out her donating their time.”  

There was one goal all of the Longhorn students had for their spring break, even if it was hundreds of miles from the dorms. 

“Everyone who is here wants to help out this community,” Alejos said