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Lend a Helping Hand

April 22, 2009

This past weekend I boarded the JUMP bus with 14 other Rollins students and traveled to Tampa, Florida to spend the weekend with Habitat for Humanity. It was the last immersion trip of the year and I couldn’t think of a better way to spend one of my last weekends here at Rollins.

I applied for the trip for many reasons, one of which being that I really wanted to spend some time giving back to the community that I have lived in for the last five years before I leave and head back home to Wisconsin. I wanted to lend a helping hand to those of our community that can use it the most and I thought that this was an excellent opportunity to accomplish that. I was also interested in spending a weekend with my fellow classmates, some who I have known for years and others who I just met for the first time, working towards achieving a common goal of helping out others. The trip turned out to be everything I hoped for and more ….

Friday afternoon we all jumped on the bus and headed down to Tampa. Everyone was tired from a long week of classes, homework and exams, but extremely excited for the trip and the weekend away. Adrianne and Ashley, our group facilitators, stocked the bus with snacks for us to enjoy while making the 2 hour journey. Once we got to our hotel we unpacked the bus and began our team icebreaker – making dinner.

Prior to the trip everyone randomly picked a card that listed the item they were assigned to bring. No one knew what their item was for; they just knew that the group was counting on them to bring their food item. After we got settled into our hotel rooms, we learned that our team ice-breaker was going to be making dinner for everyone with the food items that we all brought. On the menu was: salad, spaghetti, garlic bread, and rice krispie treats and s’mores for dessert. Everyone chose a course and got to cooking.

Before long we had an entire table full of food and everyone dove in. Dinner was excellent! After dinner we all gathered in one of the hotel rooms and played board games – Apples to Apples and Scattergories, two awesome games! Our night ended early, however, since we had to wake up at the crack of dawn the next day!

Saturday morning we woke up and met downstairs for breakfast. We all new it was crucial to get a good meal in before working on the house all day long. After breakfast we boarded the JUMP bus again and headed to the Habitat for Humanity site. When we arrived we were eagerly welcomed by the site leaders and by the other volunteers. They were excited to have a large group of college students who were all willing to do whatever tasks assigned; which is exactly what happened. After everyone put on the proper safety equipment (hard hats, gloves, etc) we were assigned tasks and got to work. A group of us were in charge of painting a shed in the back yard while another group of us were in charge of working on the concrete demolition.

A few of the guys eagerly picked up the jack hammers and sledge hammers and got to work. Little did they know just how difficult that project was going to be. They spent the entire day working on getting rid of the slab of concrete in the ground. I can’t even imagine how sore they were the next day. The Habitat for Humanity staff was so impressed with their hard work; they had no idea how difficult the concrete demo was going to be since it wasn’t a typical step in building each house.

By the end of the day the site leaders actually decided that they were going to need to hire in professional help to remove the rest of the concrete due to the unforeseen magnitude of the project. While a bunch of people were working on the concrete there were also a few girls who were sent down the street to attach siding to a shed of a different house.

They worked for several hours on the shed until it was complete – what an accomplishment! Once the shed had received two coats of paint, a couple of us moved on to the house, which also was assigned to get painted that day. After putting an entire coat of paint on the house it was finally lunch time. We all gathered under the tent to share the shade and enjoyed sandwiches, fruit, chips, cookies, and homemade brownies and cupcakes by one of the volunteers. Everyone was so generous and thoughtful for sharing everything that they had made and brought for lunch.

After lunch we quickly got back to our assigned tasks. We had finished with the first coat of paint on the building, so Ashley and I climbed the ladder to the roof to help the guys with roofing. Man was it hot up there. Not only were we on top of a rough away from any possible shade, but we were sitting and kneeling on black shingles that had been baking in the sun all day long. Ashley and I roofed for the rest of the afternoon until it was time to shut down the site and head home for the day. We took one final picture of the group, exhausted, said our goodbyes and boarded the bus to head back to Orlando.

Everyone that came with on the immersion trip added a little something to the group dynamic and made the trip as amazing as it was. We all worked together to complete our tasks and not once did anyone ever complain. It was hot and the jobs were tough, but everyone was happy to be there and excited about helping out someone in need. Throughout the entire trip, whether it was loading/unloading the bus, making dinner, or working on the house, we all helped each other out and worked as a team. While one would expect that the bus ride home after such a long and hardworking day would be silent, it was just the opposite. In just one night we had all bonded and become friends with each other, even if we had never met before, and no one could stop talking about the trip the whole way home.

This immersion trip was everything I could have asked for. I had a wonderful time from the minute we stepped on the bus to the minute we pulled back into Rollins. I accomplished every goal I was striving for and then some. Like I said, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend one of my last weekends at Rollins. I really wish I was going to be around longer to get involved in even more immersion programs, especially the future Habitat for Humanity projects!

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