| UW-Eau Claire |
News Bureau | |
|
Schofield Hall 218 |
|
Eau Claire, WI 54702-4004 |
|
|
Habitat for Humanity Volunteers
Head to North Carolina
|
|
|
|
MAILED: March 9, 1998
EAU CLAIRE -- While thousands of other college students are bathing in the tropical sunshine for a week during spring break, 20 students from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire will be pounding nails and wiping their brows as they build homes for the Habitat for Humanity program.
The students will head to Greenville, N.C., to construct decent and affordable homes, which are then sold to needy families at no profit through interest-free loans.
Junior mathematics major Patty Rosek, one of the participating students and a two-year veteran of the Habitat for Humanity program, said she is anticipating helping a family in need.
"It's a good time," Rosek said. "It's really rewarding to be working on a project with an organization dedicated to ending housing problems."
The 20 students will join a North Carolina Habitat for Humanity affiliate March 16-20 to finish framing and building walls in homes.
The UW-Eau Claire students also will join more than 6,500 other college students traveling to more than 140 Christian organizations nationwide during a three-month campaign against housing problems this spring.
The campaign, "Collegiate Challenge: Spring Break '98," is part of another event which began last November, "Building Tomorrow - Starting Today," a program challenging students to build 100 new Habitat homes by November 1998.
Rosek said in her past experiences working on homes in Oklahoma City and Branson, Mo., the families for which the home are being built work along side Habitat volunteers.
"The families we build homes for often times are living in shelters, with other families or in shacks you wouldn't even recognize as homes," she said. "This is why Habitat is so important. It offers people a chance for better living conditions."
To date, Habitat for Humanity has built more than 60,000 homes worldwide.
"If enough people participate in this, it's possible to eliminate housing problems everywhere," Rosek said. "We can accomplish a lot if we work toward this common goal."
-30-
EW/JB
[Administrative Offices]
[News Bureau]
Janice B. Wisner
UW-Eau Claire News Bureau
Schofield 218
(715) 836-4741
newsbur@uwec.edu
Updated: March 9, 1998
|
|
