Students lend hands for Habitat

BY JOHN MCCANN : The Herald-Sun
jmccann@heraldsun.com

DURHAM -- Young people are selfish. Absorbed into their own worlds. Don't care about anybody but themselves.

"Not this group," said Joyce Freeman, poised to be a first-time homeowner.

And a bunch of college kids will have helped make it possible.

Freeman's new home on Carroll Street is a Habitat for Humanity house, and she'll move in later this month.

Habitat, a national organization with affiliates throughout the country, is about making home ownership possible for those who never thought they'd have keys to anything other than what they're renting. But it's not a free ride, because the budding homeowners invest what's known as sweat equity, actually pitching in to help build the places they'll occupy.

So that's what Freeman did, with a little help from some young'uns.

They came from N.C. Central University. These are students with a community-service obligation as part of their academic requirements.

And an obligation is all it was to NCCU sophomore Khoa Le -- at first. Then he got into it, came to the conclusion that helping somebody was pretty cool.

"Once I got there, I met new people," said Le, a chemistry major from Raleigh who added something to his skill set that he hadn't figured on -- the boy now knows how to install vinyl siding.

"I'm very impressed with the students at Duke and NCCU," said Miguel Rubiera, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Durham.

In May, students from the two universities joined forces to erect the walls of Freeman's house. Later, NCCU students showed up again to do roofing and siding work on it. To boot, they went next door and did some landscaping for a single mother living here in the West End.

Selfish kids? Freeman certainly didn't get the impression that the only thing the students were interested in was getting an administrator to sign off on their service.

"I'm almost sure their heart was in it," said Freeman, recalling that the students hardly took breaks. They just worked, worked, worked. "They were really nailing."

Le said students warned him to stay away from Habitat work. There are easier ways to fulfill the community-service component, he was told. But just call the guy a glutton for punishment.

"It's hard work," Le said. "But it's enjoyable work.

"I'm actually looking for the next time to volunteer for them."

While Le's not black, most of NCCU's Habitat contingent were, and that's unusual in the Durham organization, said Caroline Kernahan, volunteer coordinator for the nonprofit. That could change with plans to establish a Habitat chapter at historically black NCCU.

Rubiera said NCCU students already were working toward having a Habitat house near campus. It'll be on Simmons Street, and construction should begin in January, Kernahan said. NCCU students will both raise the money for the house and build it, Rubiera said.

Durham's Habitat chapter has built more than 170 houses since 1985. The organization completes about 22 new houses a year.

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