Creatures of Habitat
This year, while many college students were off enjoying their spring break in warmer climes, a hearty group of 20 MCC students took an alternative path to their break, helping to renovate an old farmhouse in Bedford and helping to rebuild homes damaged by a fire in Lawrence.
For the third year in a row, students took part in the Habitat for Humanity Alternative Spring Break, helping to work on the organization's homes throughout the Merrimack Valley. By all accounts, Habitat 2009 was a huge success for its participants!
At the Lawrence site, supervised by MCC's Melissa Welch, 10 students worked on homes damaged by a fire last year. The students completed a variety of projects, including siding, installing bathroom tiles, painting, and cleanup. After days spent getting the homes ready for their new occupants, the students got to meet one of the families, who is expected to move into the home before long!
In Bedford, with the assistance of MCC's Cynthia Lynch, students did a great deal of yard work, cleaning up the farmhouse site, pulling together 20 wheelbarrows of garbage in the process! Students raked, organized wood, helped prep a kitchen for cabinet installations, helped weatherize the home, painted some of the house trim, and organized a recycling effort at the site.
Most of the students hadn't met one another before volunteering for the spring break work, but apparently became fast friends, exchanging emails, Facebook data, and contact information with one another before week's end. A nice round of applause for a group of students who chose to make a difference in someone else's life with their spring break!
