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OPINION 2
CAMPUS 3-6
A8E 2-8
SLIPSTICK 9
SPORTS 10-11

 

ASB participates in first Fall Build

Utsav Gandhi
CAMPUS EDITOR

Alternative Spring Break is known
as one of the more socially engaged student
organizations on campus, focusing on educational
outreach and volunteer opportunities to gain
and spread better awareness regarding social
justice and homelessness. Every academic year
spring break, a group of students and staff
members makes a trip to a Habitat for Humanity
affiliate site around the country, hoping to
work towards the mission of providing “safe,
affordable and decent living conditions for all.”
The student team for spring break 2014 was
picked last month, and the site location is also
conformed at this point, however, the team
leaders wanted to add an additional component
to the team building experience this year. In
order to give the team a better feel of the kind
of projects tackled during spring break, ASB
decided to visit the nearby Northwest Indiana

Habitat for Humanity (Lowell) site for a one
day trip, and came back returned with a very
honest, real and refreshing perspective on why
we decided to get involved with ASB in the first
place.

Located about two hours’ drive away
from campus, the mid-sized town of Lowell,
Indiana had a Habitat affiliate site with a
construction project currently going on, and
mainly required help that day with a medium—
sized house they were building for a divorced
mother of one who has been living out of her
parent’s basement for the last six years. Despite
the weather getting increasingly cold, enough
for students to shiver even in five layers of
clothing, the team members were excited and
ready to leave at 6am in the morning; and after
a two hour bus ride, we were ready to start the
tasks assigned for the team. Some included
sighting for the external walls of the house, some
included assisting with foam installation for
insulation purposes, a couple of team members

spent the day closer to the roof, whereas some
were helping clean up the trailer van.

The project team had been working
on the house for the last eight days but had
already completed a significant portion of the
house - the homeowner was expecting to have
the house ready by Christmas, which brought
smiles to our faces. The homeowner was herself
present, readily helping out in the tasks needed
for construction. This is in line with Habitat’s
idea of “sweat equity”, wherein the homeowner
is expected to contribute up to 500 hours of
service in order to lay claim towards the house.
This ensures that they feel a sense of ownership
and accomplishment towards their own house,
inculcating a sense of giving back to the
community and empathy with the volunteers.

Habitat’s long standing mission is
that the work they do and service they provide
is not a “hand-out” but rather a “hand-up”;
which is crucial to sustainable development
and vastly different from so many volunteer

 

projects around the world, wherein money and
donations are just handed out without a sense of
resource building or community empowerment.

ASB 2014 is picking up momentum
with significant team building experiences at
weekly meetings, in addition to some positive
introspection as to the reasons why we do
service and how can we as a community become
more cognizant of larger issues of homelessness
and social justice not only at the sites we serve at
but also our immediate Chicago neighborhoods.
Besides traditional fundraisers like Rocky’s Tip
Matching Night and the Taste of HT, the team is
looking to implement more fundraisers centered
on our mission and goals. Additionally, even
though the spring break team has been finalized,
there is still opportunity to get involved with a
possible ASB Chicago that is in the works, in
partnership with the Office of Service Learning
and other IIT/Chicago entities. Email asb.iit@
gmail.com for more information.