UC Students Are the First to Take on New Katrina-Related Project During Spring Break

Eleven students from the University of Cincinnati will roll up their sleeves over spring break and build the first home that launches a new initiative to eliminate deplorable housing conditions in the rural south. In a unified display of support for the students, members of the University of Cincinnati Board of Trustees contributed the $50,000 in funding to build the new home for the Chattahoochee Project Initiative blitz build in Lanett, Ala.

During spring break March 19-23, the UC students will join UC alum Dan Dallmer and former Cincinnati Post Editor Paul Knue, both longtime volunteers with Habitat for Humanity. They’ll build the University of Cincinnati House – the first of several hundred volunteer-built homes that the Chattahoochee Project Initiative (CPI) is planning over the next decade to dramatically improve communities crossing three municipalities in Alabama and Georgia.

“Once a thriving area with over 15,000 textile mill jobs, this region has fallen on hard times, with less than 500 mill jobs and an influx of families affected by Hurricane Katrina that have relocated from the Gulf Coast,” explains Dallmer, a 1985 graduate of the UC College of Business. “The construction site targeted by UC is in a neighborhood that has been in serious decline for some time. Some abandoned homes on the street have been burned down by the Lanett Fire Department. The other abandoned homes that are still standing are clearly unfit for human inhabitation,” Dallmer says.

Dallmer, who will serve as block captain on the UC spring break project, says CPI modeled its mission after the Sumter County Challenge initiated by Habitat for Humanity in Americus, Ga. From 1992 to 2000, Habitat for Humanity volunteers built more than 500 houses to eliminate poverty in that county. Dallmer says CPI is coordinating with volunteers from Habitat for Humanity and the Fuller Center for Housing to generate the construction and rehabilitation of homes for qualifying families.

The service-related spring break trip evolved from a November meeting between Dallmer, Knue and H.C. Buck Niehoff, vice chairperson of the University of Cincinnati’s Board of Trustees, and Mitchel D. Livingston, UC vice president of Student Affairs and Services. “Given the university’s commitment to building four homes in the area with Cincinnati Habitat for Humanity, UC’s Center for Community Engagement, which coordinates the volunteers on our community building projects, also took the lead on developing this spring break service opportunity for our students,” says Livingston.

To join the initiative, volunteers needed to raise $50,000 to cover the construction materials for the home. As a result, H.C. Buck Niehoff, vice chairperson of the University of Cincinnati’s Board of Trustees, reached out to fellow board members, asking for contributions to support the UC trip. The January letter to board members raised the $50,000 in personal donations for the volunteer build.

“The university has reached out to this community in the past, welcoming students when their universities were closed by Hurricane Katrina,” Niehoff says. “The trustees eagerly embraced this idea in supporting the UC|21 emphasis on building community.”

Students got an early start on the home in Cincinnati. They spent a Saturday in February constructing the walls of the home to ship down to the site. Once they arrive in Alabama, they’ll work on framing, flooring, insulation, drywall and other construction.

“It’s been a while since I’ve done volunteer work, so I thought this would be a good time to get involved,” says Bethany Sharrock, a third-year nutrition science major from Ada, Ohio. “I feel that I have been truly blessed in my life. I’ve been given everything from my parents, and I feel that because I’ve been so blessed, it’s important to help those less fortunate,” says Sharrock, who has also volunteered at Bible camps, homeless shelters, soup kitchens and the March of Dimes.

“I’ve done community service around Cincinnati and Columbus, but this is the first full trip I’m taking with the intention to do work,” says Sharrock’s boyfriend, third-year mechanical engineering major Terrance McGuire of Columbus, Ohio. “I’m looking forward to it. I’m really excited.”

The student volunteers – their majors ranging from mechanical engineering to political science and philosophy – will depart Cincinnati on March 18 and return on March 24 to gear up for spring quarter. They’ll build the first of four homes planned during the blitz week. They’ll be joined by volunteers from Up with People, an international program for young adults that, through the performing arts, promotes hope and goodwill around the world.

Check UC's other service-related spring break trips.