Six Hamburg Area High School Leo Club volunteers went on an annual volunteer trip. This year they went to Connecticut to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity of Southeast Connecticut from April 10 to 13.
The six students include Erika Romero, Victoria Baumert, Zoe Irey, Jenn Guldin, Taylor Millette, and Leah Bertschy. The trip was advised by Hamburg teacher Teresa McCarthy who drove the four hour trek to Connecticut and helped volunteer with the students.
This was the fourth trip to help Habitat for Humanity for Victoria and Leah since they went to Watertown, NY; Westminster, Md. and Winchester VA, and Chincoteague, VA. This will be the final volunteer trip for the students considering they will all graduate this year and pass down their positions in Leo Club.
Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit and non-governmental organization that builds houses for those who are either homeless or cannot afford to pay mortgage and upkeep a house. The organization was created in 1976 and have organizations all around the globe. Habitat for Humanity not only builds new homes but will take old homes and renovate them to make them seem just as new. Habitat for Humanity is a Christian based organization that is stationed in 70 countries across the globe.
Our duties were to build a fence on the left side of the property while the other half of the students started helping building the foundation of the house. We had two men to accompany us named Dino and Charlie who helped us along the way since none of us know much about construction. On April 12, we volunteered at the nearest ReStore and helped take down a tent and make a new one for furniture that was placed outside.
The activities we did were visiting Mystic and eating at Mystic Pizza very popular since it is the site where the movie “Mystic Pizza” was filmed starring Julia Roberts. We also put our brains to the test and tried an escape room in Mystic as a fun activity after we worked hard at the construction site.
We stayed at the Calvary Chapel Church for the three nights we stayed there.
Senior Zoe Irey, who has gone on this trip once before and this one, said, “This trip really opened my eyes.”
For more information about Habitat for Humanity visit, https://www.habitat.org/.