Raising the Roof

Tucked into a wooded lot on W. Washington Street is a house that is nearer completion today thanks to 12 teens and six adults from Unitarian Universalist Church of Charlotte. The group rolled into town last Monday, started hammering nails and began framing a Habitat for Humanity house, located at 904 W. Washington St. The building blitz took place from Monday through Thursday with the group arriving at the site at 8 a.m. and working until 4 p.m. each day, finishing up by noon on Friday.

“They took the house from the floor to the rafters,” said Ron Skipper of Habitat for Humanity. “It would have taken us a month or more of Saturdays with our volunteers to get this far. They are an outstanding group of teens and advisors. This is the second year they have adopted us as their Habitat affiliate.”

The team of youth had varying reasons for signing up for the project; however, by the time the work was begun, they all had one common goal – to take the project as far as they could to completion.

Martin Hill said his reason for signing up was that he wanted to help others by working as part of a team.

Elliott Bloom said he liked the sense of accomplishment he received by working on the house. And he liked being able to see the fruits of his labor day by day. Bloom said the only negative to the week was the blistering sun, which burnt the top of his head, and the sweltering heat, which made working in the middle of the day uncomfortable.
Meghann Utzig said, “Being able to do as much as the guys, and being able to do something hands-on was great.”

She also said seeing how much they could accomplish in such a short time was a real accomplishment.

“I am surprised how far we have gotten in two days,” Utzig said on Wednesday. “It is a lot more than we did last year.”

This is her second Habitat project in Hartsville.

“I came last year and loved it,” she said. “Last year we got to meet the family moving in. We haven’t met this year’s family, but we saw another family coming out of a house (across the street) yesterday, and they seemed really happy.”

This is Sara Francis’ second year in Hartsville helping build a Habitat house. She said she had a lot of fun last year and saw that she could do a lot of good.

“It was good to see what we accomplished last year,” Francis said. “It was really successful last year, and I knew I wanted to do it again. I never thought we could have accomplished this.”

Heat was the main issue with all of the workers.

Claire Burd, organizer of the trip, said it was a way for her to “pay it forward.”

When she was a teen she was given the opportunity to build a house for Habitat. Burd was 14 when her youth advisor gave her the opportunity to help build a house.
Burd said she went to three different states to help. She said it gave her a lot of confidence that she could accomplish anything if she could help build a house.
Now that she has her own home, she doesn’t hesitate to start major projects.

Burd said this is her second year with the Charlotte church.

“We knew we wanted to do work in the Carolinas,” she said. “We were looking for a small affiliate where we could get to know the community and where our work would make a greater impact.”

Burd and her husband, Ken, both made the trip to Hartsville. She said the director of religious education at her church had a sister living in Hartsville, and she helped them to get to know the community.

Burd said the youth have done all the work themselves, and it has given them a true sense of accomplishment.
“Some of the advisors have done Habitat work through the years and were able to advise,” she said. “But it was the 12 of them (youth) all working together that made it happen.”

Burd said the heat is aggressive, and they had to prepare their bodies for this kind of work. Once they got use to the heat it was okay. The group was mostly 16-year-olds with one 18-year-old.

Burd said last year they did a lot of projects for the people at Mt. Calvary AME Church and valued the relationship they had. The group wanted to return to the church this year to get reacquainted with the members and attended a church service.
“We went back to see everybody,” she said.

Burd summed up the feeling the group got from the community and their work here by saying it was amazing. “The neighborhood people stopped by and gave us hugs, waved as they drove by and made us feel like celebrities.”

Skipper said Monday the roof is now being put on the house.

“They saved us a lot of volunteer labor,” Skipper said. “I want to make a plea to local church youth groups who want to build a home.”

Skipper said he encourages local churches to consider a summer camp for youth 16 and up. Multiple churches could get together and have a camp where the youth could camp out at the church and be feed there, and then come to the Habitat site during the day to work.

“We really need help,” Skipper said.

He said this would be a wonderful opportunity for local youth to help in their own community and be able to witness their accomplishments.