By Grace Farrell
The Habitat for Humanity club is officially re-establishing itself as an active Puget Sound organization. The club was established on campus in 1992 with statistics professor Alison Paradise as the club’s advisor. It was active pre-pandemic, but interest in the club waned following COVID-19.
To combat growing disinterest, Paradise and Program Manager for Community-based Learning Tiffany Williams organized a weeklong volunteering opportunity with Habitat for Humanity over spring break.
“We organized the spring break opportunity with the dual purpose in mind of providing a meaningful ‘alternative break’ program for our students that would benefit our community, while also hoping that it would renew interest in the Habitat club,” Williams says.
Ten students participated in the “alternative break” program, and many of them were offered experiential learning credit for their commitment. Paradise noted that several participating students joined the club’s executive team after becoming excited about the club’s impact.
“The students who volunteered for Habitat for Humanity over spring break had a great time,” Paradise says. “I think that knowing that they were contributing to really important work that addresses a critical need in our community, while also having fun and building useful skills, motivated them to recruit more students to participate in the future.” Paradise believes that the spring break event was crucial to renewing interest in the club.
Lizzie Beiswanger (‘27) participated in the volunteer program. “We spent a week giving our time and effort to support the Tacoma community,” she says. “It definitely taught me the importance of teamwork while adapting to the challenges of unfamiliar environments,” Beiswanger added.
More membership will allow the Habitat for Humanity club to continue its goal of highlighting the need for affordable housing in our community. They aim to contribute to a solution through organizing a local chapter, Paradise says. The club’s president, Toni Wyatt (‘28), says she has high ambitions for the upcoming school year. The Habitat for Humanity club is planning several builds, and they plan to invite more Puget Sound students to volunteer. She believes that the volunteering experience provides students with valuable skill-building and social opportunities.
“We got to learn how to use power tools, and other construction information which I think will absolutely become handy in the future, as well as we were working with another college, so we experienced a lot of different personalities and met a lot of people,” Wyatt says.
Habitat for Humanity requires all volunteers to undergo preliminary training before participating but is welcoming to those of all backgrounds who are interested. Wyatt encourages those curious about the club and its events to visit @ups_habitat on Instagram.