Looking Back by Mr. Hood

I am back at my desk in Rochester on this gray Monday morning.  We truly had a great week working with Habitat for Humanity in Lebanon, PA.  I have some work to do to wrap up our trip, including figuring out a way to get my car started again after a week in the McQuaid parking lot with the dome light on.  I am happy to report that I look back on our week with a deep sense of gratitude.  Thank you to Caroline, Justin, Darcy, and everyone associated with Habitat for Humanity of Lebanon County.  You arranged and facilitated a full and meaningful week of service for us.  Thank you to the local volunteers who brought delicious meals to us each evening.  Thank you to the student participants who we shared this experience with.  Your hard work on the building sites was evident in the changes to the houses we worked on.  Your commitment to community building was evident in our Ignatian "Review of the Day" reflection times, and in the friendships formed and strengthened on the trip.  Thank you to the parents, family, and friends who supported the participants of this trip on their week of service.  The trip would not have been possible without the support and hard work of many loving people.

Our hope is that we will be making an annual spring break trip to Lebanon PA to work with Habitat for years to come.  If you are interested in participating in future trips, or would like to know more about our work with Habitat for Humanity locally, please let me know.

Reflection By Taylor Potter

As McQuaid's first Habitat for Humanity trip comes to a close, I look back and see how great of an experience it was. This trip was my first Habitat encounter and it was amazing. Everyday, we would build for seven hours and then go back to the campsite to hang out, sleep, and play games outside. We destroyed and built a large portion of the house, but there is still a lot of work to be done and probably will not be finished until next year.


While rebuilding the burnt down houses on Walnut Street, I realized how committed the volunteers were. Today, I worked with a couple who volunteers every Thursday for the past few years on houses throughout the community. They told me that Lebanon was hit hard by the recession, but there are many investors who are willing to rebuild main street and surrounding neighborhoods. Every Wednesday, a group of retired construction workers come in and volunteer as well as socialize. Habitat is well established in Lebanon and is working hard to stay organized while involving as many locals as possible.

I plan to become more involved with the Habitat Club next year at McQuaid because of this trip. The students are a great group of guys who can balance work and fun.

Reflection by Nick Brown

So we're done with all of our service work now... It's been quite a week. This has definitely been one of my best service experiences so far. It has been one of the most fun and relaxing projects, but also one of the most productive and engaging. We have been able to see some significant visual progress at each of the sites we have worked on, especially at our main site where we had begun installing frames and flooring by our last two workdays. I have learned a lot throughout the build process. I had never previously been involved in any sort of significant building project like this and did not know much of anything about construction coming in; however, by the last few hours of working, I was being left to do tasks on my own and had a pretty good sense of everything that was going on around me. I had also started to establish some pretty friendly relationships with the volounteers working at the site who were not affiliated with McQuaid.


Our group had a lot of fun outside of our work time as well and time each day and evening to ourselves to do as we pleased back at our bunkhouse, which proved to be very accomodating and was well located around the build sites and local stores. Overall, this was a fantastic experience and would definitely be an experience I would repeat if given the opportunity. I am very interested in volunteering for Habitat for Humanity again and participating in future service projects, both with McQuaid and otherwise, and would encourage others to do the same.

Last Day of Building

Reflection by Marc Torchio

Today was a total rollercoaster ride, with its ups and downs. We get to the work site and a bit of surprise were on our faces as we see a swarm of old guys come walking (slowly) toward us. They were nice, and enjoyable to work with. A bit stand offish at times, however I was told that they were snickering at my skills with a hammer. I must confess I missed the nail head 70% of the time. But we did see a lot of physical improvement today, which was reassuring for all of us. Later the group was split and half of us helped to stake a community garden. It was a very mellow activity. We laid in the long grass, talking about college and making fun of our group dud.


Then in the distance I heard a man’s cry for two strong boys, and then and there I knew my strength was needed, because I am of course the strongest in the group. So I helped him bring a 325 lb!!! TV to head quarters along with a stove and another smaller TV. We got back, read some of my book, and watched a little TV. Again, today had its up’s and its down’s, which I would very much like to experience in reality(a rollercoaster) at Hershey park which is only a couple miles away, but no… I’m the only one who wants to go. Other than that, this trip has been enjoyable; I’ve grown closer to my friends and got to know people I never thought I’d get a long with. It’s been a great trip, and I hope to finish it off in a bang tomorrow our last full day in Lebanon, Pennsylvania.

Reflection by Jake Ferrigno

Yesterday and today were more depressing than monday and sunday. On tuesday we had to tear down a house that habitat had been rehabed and was almost finished. The buyer had already put his/her 250 sweat equity hours into the house and now they had to hand it over to the city for it's base price (not including man hours). Joel said that they are losing $30,000 on the house. The thing that made me really mad was that the house was not in the way of the construction. The city is building a bridge to go over the train tracks that cut the city in half. Today was a better than tuesday except for the weather. Cloudy and scattered rain showers (Rochester??). We put in subflooring and some interior walls. We also helped set up a garden. Despite me sounding depressing, this trip has been a wonderful experience that I will never forget. I have made some great friends, built up and improved older ones, and learned the value of what I have.

Reflection by Anthony Schifitto

Today was like a day in Rochester.  The sky was cloudy and the weather was more indecisive than me.  Today started with unfortunate events and slight disappointment but ended on a positive note.  At about three in the morning, both Taylor and I suffered from some sort of unpleasant stomach and digestive annoyance.  At the construction site, both the brothers that had been working with us on the previous days, were not there, sadly, for different reasons.  I felt at the beginning, that the day was counterproductive, boring, and slow.  There seemed to be an overall lack of enthusiasm compared to yesterday, which was a quite a exciting and eventful day.  But as the day progressed so did the house, as we began frame walls and install sub-flooring.  By the end of our work, I felt like our outlook had become much more positive, we had visual progression and it did not rain that much. So far this week has been an experience I do not regret, as I have learned more about building, the environments and area where these homes and families are located and more about the other classmates on this trip.

Day Three on the Job

Reflection by Lucas Sullivan

Our first three days have been great.  The bus ride was a little tight, but as soon as we got off the bus there was plenty of space to run around.  The first day of building was way more fun than I expected.  At first, I was a bit apprehensive because there was so much work to be done, but we made visible progress by the end of the day.  The accommodations have been spectacular, with plenty of room and a great view of  Lebanon Valley.  The second day, we barely worked at our build site from the first day but we removed a two staircases from a building that was going to be torn down.  This was especially cool because I didn't know that staircases could be taken out in one piece, but apparently they can.  So far, this trip has been a lot of fun and I can't wait to keep building.

Reflection from Aaron Taggart

We started off the day by heading over to another Habitat project a few blocks away to take the staircases from the house. The house is being demolished because the city decided that it wants to build a car bridge over the near-by railroad tracks. It infuriates me that someone was forced to leave their home because the city wants to construct a fancy road. However, it also provides the opportunity for reuse because those staircases would have otherwise gone to waste. Now the staircases will be placed in the house we are working on which was decimated by a fire a few years ago.
As a senior, I regret not going on a service trip earlier. Not only am I building new and strong friendships with my fellow classmen, but I am learning a lot about myslef. Today I learned that I am not comfortable with heights when all I have to stand on are two cross beams ten feet above the floor.

So far, the trip has been amazing and I am sure that the next three days will be equally as awesome.

Photos from a Day of Demolition and Building

Reflection of the First Two Days

     So far my time here at the Berg Haus in Lebanon, PA has been a great time filled with many memories of friends and experiences new and old. Besides the being crammed like sardines inside our tiny little bus for 5 hours, everything has been just swell. Well I can't be too harsh on our bus ride since we did everything from playing cards to staring at passerbys. Of all the things that have happened to me, the most memorable, for better or for worse, is finding a place called "Mr. Sticky's Homemade Skicky Buns" on the road and being tripped over twice,while not being seen of course, during our first game of Manhunt in the dark. During my remaining time here I hope to learn to step outside of my comfort zones, help a deserving family acquire a new home sooner, and above all have fun with my fellow McQuaidians.

-Steve Seaford

First Day Of Work

Today we rode into town to begin our first day of work in Lebanon, Pennsylvannia.  The town is a blue collar, rural town/small city and the houses we are working on are in the downtown area.  The houses were side-by-side townhouses destroyed by a kitchen fire which killed one of the previous owners of one of the houses, a sobering fact we learned as we began our work.  We divided into two teams with one in the kitchen of the house opposite the main fire and one on the second story working between the floorboards.

The work was interesting as it entailed a certain amount of demolition. It was a fun and rewarding experience.  It will be intertesting at the end of the week to see how much work we accomplish.  Judging from all the work done today, it will seem very little to some, yet a lot to the families receiving the two houses at the end of the project.

Returning from work we all settled into either sleep or showers...then sleep.  We relaxed until dinner arrived in the form of two church volunteers who brought us a meal of macaroni and cheese with ham.  It was a lovely meal at the end of a long day and everyone enjoyed it greatly.

-Jack

Reflection: First Day

So far the trip has been a lot of fun. We had a good time yesterday on the ride down playing card games, listening to music and getting to know each other. When we got here, we got all of our groceries and unpacked our stuff. The cabin is comfortable and reminds Marc Torchio of a birdhouse. We ended the night on a good note, by talking about our goals for the week and then playing games like Manhunt outside until it was time to go to sleep.

Today was our first day actually working on the site. It was an interesting experience, since most of the building days that I have been on were with new houses that Habitat started building. The connected townhouses that we're working on were damaged by a fire, but a county law states that Habitat can only help rebuild the old houses, as opposed to demolishing the old houses and building new ones. So a lot of the work that we did today focused on getting rid of parts that were too damaged to be useful and replacing them with new parts. We ripped out old plumbing, knocked out fire-burned walls with sledge-hammers and put shingles on the roof. Overall, it was a great start and I'm sure we'll have accomplished a lot by the end of the week. I can't wait to continue building.

--Jeff

First Work Day

Departure and Arrival

Trip Participants

Students:                      Adult Leaders:
Brown, Nicolas               Mr. Luke Hardy
Ferrigno, Jake               Mr. Christopher Hood
Grobe, George
Kemp. Jeff
Potter, Taylor
Quitter, Eric
Schifitto, Anthony
Seaford, Steven
Sullivan, Lucas
Taggart, Aaron
Torchio, Marc