Habitat for Humanity has a reputation of always showing up where help is needed, and since 2006 SMU has had its own chapter that’s been extending a hand.
Originally founded in 1976 by Millard and Linda Fuller, Habitat was formed as a Christian housing ministry. With a mission to demonstrate the love of Jesus, the Fullers designed Habitat with principles that focus on shelter, advocate for affordable housing, promote dignity and hope and to support sustainable and transformable development.
The SMU chapter is still fairly young and works with Dallas Area Habitat and Highland Park United Methodist Church’s Carpenter for Christ. These two organizations guide the SMU chapter on what events to plan and how to raise awareness and money on campus.
Each specific chapter follows the principles by recruiting volunteers to build homes and raise awareness for the need of affordable housing in the U.S. and internationally. Because Habitat is a nonprofit organization, volunteers allow the homes to have an interest-free mortgage. Habitat provides the low-income families educational classes to learn how to manage their money. This grows the communities further than just building houses.
“When you help out at a build, you get to see the house built from the foundation to the roof and know that you directly contributed to that,” said Sorsha Huff, vice president of public relations.
In the SMU bubble, students normally don’t see that Dallas as a whole has a very wide economic divide between the very poor and the very rich. Habitat for Humanity’s corporate headquarters is located in Dallas where they have made strides in bridging the gap.
Many events happen throughout the year including “Shack-a-thon” where Habitat built a small cardboard box city decorated with facts about homelessness and to raise awareness about the kinds of issues the organization works to resolve.
“We currently work with the Highland Park United Methodist Church to hold builds throughout the year on various houses, culminating in a ‘Blitz Build’ in February, when SMU students work for one month to build two houses. We need all the help we can get,” said Gwen Carris, vice president of communications.
But Habitat is more than building houses. Students get to see the city in a whole new way.
“I believe that all of us at SMU have been really fortunate in being able to study at such an amazing school in such an incredible, global city,” Huff said. “For me, volunteering through Habitat for Humanity is a way to give back and say thank you. I think it’s important to everyone in Habitat to help people in a long-term, effective way. I have friends whose houses were built by Habitat for Humanity, so I really believe that it works.”
Meetings are on the first Sunday of every month at 7 p.m. in Hughes-Trigg. Join the Facebook group “SMU Habitat for Humanity,” visit their website http://smuhabitatforhumanity.webstarts.com/index.html or email the group at [email protected]
