Habitat for Humanity International’s “Collegiate Challenge” offers students the chance to spend their spring break building homes and improving lives.
One of the two main goals of the program is to give students the opportunity to spend their school breaks with Habitat for Humanity. The second is to provide affiliates with volunteers where they are needed, said Alynn Woodson, Collegiate Challenge manager.
Students that participate in the Collegiate Challenge will have the opportunity to learn more about the work performed by Habitat.
“I hope students gain an appreciation of poverty in the areas they visit and what Habitat for Humanity is doing to combat that poverty,” Woodson said.
When the program began 16 years ago, it consisted of one affiliate and 1200 participants. Participation has grown to 250 affiliates and 12,500 students who volunteered for last year’s collegiate challenge.
“In the beginning, we made steady jumps, and since then there has been about 500 additional participants each year,” she said.
Autumn Dalton, president of the University’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity, participated in Collegiate Challenge for the first time last year.
Helping others really defines a person, Dalton said.
“I think you are what you do, and if what you do is help someone else, I believe it changes who you are,” she said.
The experience can also help individuals realize how good their life really are.
“It reminds you of what you have,” Dalton said. “I complain a lot about that little dorm room and how it smells funny when it’s warm, but it’s so much better than what some people have.”
Dalton and four other individuals traveled to North Carolina to help in the various steps of building a home and to lend a voice to those who are sometimes voiceless.
“If you’re living in poverty housing, you don’t have a lot of time to go protest or demonstrate because you’re too busy trying to get by,” she said. “These people are underrepresented.”
Participating in the program offers an opportunity to help others, but does not mean forfeiting spring break, Woodson said.
“I don’t see it as giving up your spring break, I see it as using it in a different way,” she said. “Just because you aren’t spending your spring break the typical way does not mean you can’t have fun.”
Living in Bowling Green during the school year and enduring the weather of Northwest Ohio does not allow for much time to build, Dalton said.
“If you want to do habitat, if you want to build, if you really want to help people, here’s your chance,” she said. ” I had not counted on it being fun and it really was.”
The program gives students the unique opportunity to use their time and strength to improve the lives of others.
“I think this is a unique time frame to take advantage of that opportunity, to go out and do some work for other people,” Dalton said. “As far as partying, you can do that every weekend. This experience stays with you more and has a greater chance of having an impact on you.”
Most of the people living in poverty housing are children, Dalton said.
“What eight-year-old ever deserved to be born into a lean-to house or a crummy too-tiny apartment with roaches,” she said. “They are just children, just people who have not had the chance to make a wrong decision yet.”
Volunteering is one way to gain a wider perspective on the world, Woodson said.
“Every new experience that young people have alters their perceptions of the world,” she said. “Collegiate challenge and Habitat for Humanity do that.”
