Students forgo the spring break party scene to help build homes with The Fuller Center for Housing.
Written By Patricia Grandjean
The term “spring break” fills most people’s heads with clichéd images of college-aged students heading for points south to frolic on the beach and party wildly. At least 50 Wittenberg students took another path, traveling to the warm climes of Florida and Georgia during spring break 2016 to make a difference.
These undergrads spent vacation week last March fixing leaky roofs, replacing rotting trellises on mobile homes and doing yard work for people in need under the aegis of The Fuller Center for Housing, an international Christian nonprofit organization—based in Americus, Georgia—that has spearheaded homebuilding and renovation projects in locations from all across the United States to farther-flung destinations such as Haiti, Peru, Armenia and Sri Lanka.
Established in 2005, The Fuller Center is the brainchild of celebrated humanitarian Millard Dean Fuller and his widow,Linda, who previously co-founded Habitat for Humanity International in 1976. “Millard was a millionaire who gave up all his worldly possessions to start that organization,” says Dave Holly, operations manager for The Fuller Center in Clark County,Ohio. “He was known for only taking $70,000 a year as CEO.”As Habitat expanded, however, some of its directors thought that more money should be spent on overhead and salaries. His refusal to go along with them earned Fuller a pink slip. “In 2005, after Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans, he felt the need to get back to his roots,” Holly says. “So he started the whole idea all over again,under his own name this time.”
Wittenberg had a long relationship with Habitat, reaching back to the late 1980s when Kristen Collier ’92, currently director of community service at the university’s Hagen Center for Civic and Urban Engagement, worked for the nonprofit as an undergrad. At that time, Habitat became one of the linchpins of Wittenberg’s community service graduation requirement, for which, she says,“every student must complete 27 hours of volunteer work in the field and three hours of ‘reflection,’ including a written essay about their experiences.” It’s all part of a course called Community Service (CMSV) 100, which earns 0 credits, but hopefully helps create a student population with heightened awareness of and compassion for the needs of others.
All students fulfill at least a few hours of their service requirement by working in Wittenberg’s local community, the Springfield/Clark County area. Certain nonprofits have also offered undergrads the opportunity to fulfill most of their volunteer time farther afield during week long semester breaks, in what’s called an “immersion experience.” So it was with Habitat. For over two decades, students who chose to help the organization could focus all their energies on projects spearheaded by its Clark County chapter—or broaden their horizons by working in another location entirely. Some participants enjoyed this so much they made it an annual tradition beyond the need to complete a graduation requirement, such as Maggie Kramer ’16, who has worked with Habitat in Tupelo, Mississippi; Lexington, Kentucky;and Monroe, North Carolina.
“One of the most amazing things you can see on a trip is a house dedication,” she says. “It warms your whole heart, seeing a house going to someone who really deserves it. You get to meet so many different people and hear so many different stories—and know that the work you’re doing for a week is contributing to something bigger than yourself.”
A year or so ago, Clark County shifted its allegiance.After it decided to partner with The Fuller Center instead of Habitat, a student-led transition team instigated a similar shift at Wittenberg—making the university the first to join Fuller’s mission. “That marked the inaugural opportunity for Fuller to develop what Habitat calls the ‘Collegian Challenge,’ which involves universities all over the world,” Holly says. “It’s kind of awesome. Hopefully, it will also become a huge thing.”
Creating the kind of “immersion experiences” that Habitat’s student volunteers had enjoyed quickly became a priority for Fuller supporters. One unique aspect of Habitat’s spring break trips had always been that they were totally student-led—the only student-led project, Holly says, that Wittenberg allows on campus. Students drove themselves to and from each location,managed their own finances and planned activities for the week with minimal assistance from college administrators or nonprofit officials. Still, in planning Wittenberg’s first spring breaks on behalf of The Fuller Center, student coordinator Kramer relied heavily on input from Collier, Stacy Driggers, U.S. Director of Covenant Partner Support, and Holly. There were applications to review—which students submitted last fall—locations to scout and accommodations to set up. “Because Fuller is a Christian organization, students generally stay in a church, temple or some facility associated with a church,” Kramer says.
Ultimately, 50 of the 55 who applied for last March’s spring break immersions were accepted, and by Christmas break 2015,three destinations had been selected: Tallahassee, Florida (which accepted 10 students), Perry, Georgia (another 10) and Albany,Georgia (which welcomed the lion’s share of 30, divided into two project groups of 15 each). Then Kramer had to train two student leaders to manage each group. One was Jessica Walters ’18, who works with Kristen Collier as community service coordinator at the Hagen Center.
In co-leading the Tallahassee trip, Walters says, “I definitely got my ‘mom’ experience for the week. It was one of the most stressful but rewarding things I’ve ever done, because I had to make sure everyone was in the van when they were supposed to be and everyone understood the code of conduct they were supposed to follow. I had to be a motivator for the team and encourage them to really digest the experience, not just live it.” She also had to share the 15-hour drive from Ohio to Florida’s capital city and back.“The work was very strenuous, but the Tallahassee-Fuller Center for Housing was the most welcoming group of people I ever met.”
Without a doubt, the biggest beneficiary of Wittenberg’s volunteer effort was the town of Albany, Georgia, which didn’t even have a Fuller chapter before this spring break was planned.Driggers, an Albany native, established one on the spot—with a little help from her church. “It really was a case of divine intervention,” she says, “spurred on by the fact that when we first talked with Wittenberg about the volunteers coming to Georgia,we just couldn’t find enough locations that could take them all. Now we’re working on two new construction projects here this summer, and we have the university to thank.”
Upon arrival, students became engaged in a range of home renovation projects. In Perry, Georgia, volunteers embarked on a trio of roof replacements, replacing rotten, leaky boards with metal panels and shingles. The Tallahassee group worked on transitional housing. “We replaced termite-infested wooden latticework on the bottom of a group of mobile homes with nice white plastic latticework,” Walters says. “We finished about 10 of them in that one week.”
One of the Albany groups worked on the home renovation of a townie named Mark, who Driggers describes as “an introvert who had had some really hard knocks. It was a very big deal for him to be around people.” Yet, he developed a really tight bond with his student helpers. In addition to repairing several house problems,“they just took over his yard, which was a jungle, and turned it into a beautiful landscape,” she says. “One of our Fuller board members bought Mark a new mailbox, which the students decorated with painted cats in honor of this cat he had that he really loved. It was a wonderful surprise for him.”
For extra enrichment, all 50 Wittenberg students spent one day together at The Fuller Center’s home base in Americus,Georgia, learning more about the organization’s mission and meeting with Linda Fuller, known as the “First Lady of Affordable Housing.” They also spent time getting to know each other, playing card games and board games at night in their various residences.
“These experiences really help you build friendships with students you might not otherwise meet,” says Sabrina Davis ’18,who worked with the roofing group in Perry. “You get very close,because you have to collaborate and trust each other while you’re working.”