September 12, 2024

Mercy Home’s young people spent a portion of their summer giving back to the community and making a difference in the lives of others. But many went the extra mile this year, traveling across the country to help build housing for people in need.

As they have for the past several summers, young people partnered with Habitat for Humanity’s Forsyth County (Winston-Salem, N.C.) chapter. While our young women have participated in the trip the last few years, a group of our young men pitched in this year.

The trip was an enriching experience for all involved, especially for one young woman. Since she was a young girl, Bre has always been passionate about construction. Last year, she participated in an education-based program called YouthBuild. Yet she admitted that she hadn’t taken full advantage of the opportunities offered to her during that program.

But this year, while building trusses and scaffolding with 13 other Mercy Home girls and coworkers in Winston-Salem, Bre threw herself fully into the work and gained new motivation for her future career.

“I rediscovered that I am very passionate about construction and want to work in that field,” Bre said. “I want to join a union.”

This year’s contingent was the largest Mercy Home group that has ever volunteered for Habitat for Humanity. 

“There was a lot of teamwork, but you could do [the job] individually if you wanted to,” Dania, one of Mercy Home’s young people, said. “It just depended how you wanted to work.”

This year, our young women’s primary task was to erect the scaffolding and place the trusses that would support the roof of the house. 

“My favorite part was being able to get the trusses up on top of the building on the last day,” said. Colleen Austin, a youth care supervisor who also drove the girls to Winston-Salem last year. “That was the most monumental part. I think some of them struggled because you couldn’t see the progress they were making. They realized that the trusses are going to be on that house forever because of us.” 

One of the most impactful moments came when our young people saw girls’ names on the bedroom walls of the new home. The sight personalized the work for them as they realized these were the names of the young girls who would ultimately live there and that they had a hand in making a home for kids.  

“At the end, I realized the impact I was having,” Dania said. “In the moment, I was too busy with the project to understand it. But I was able to put a name on it.” 

A group of our young men visited the site later and finished the installation on the roof. 

Another group of young men also travelled to Clarksdale, Mississippi to work with the Fuller Center for Housing, an organization that works to build and rehabilitate homes for people in need.

Much like the Habitat for Humanity trip, the boys also helped build the roof of a home. Lawrence, one of the boys who attended, said that the city felt empty, and he wanted to make a difference.  

“I just enjoyed every moment, every second I was building,” he said. “I love doing tasks. We all worked together. Some of us were sawing, hammering and some of us made wood. The focus was on the roof because they had already finished the walls.” 

The trip to Mississippi also served as a learning opportunity. The boys visited the Emmett Till Interpretive Center where they learned about the Civil Rights Movement and Till’s story. Till, a fourteen-year-old boy from Chicago, was murdered while visiting relatives in Money, Miss. His death in 1955, and his mother Maime Till Mobley’s insistence on an open-casket funeral, forced the country to face the brutality of racism and helped reignite the movement.   

“We explored our history,” Lawrence said. “I learned a lot.” 

These service trips continued our young people’s tradition of helping to provide safe housing for others. For 15 years prior to the onset of the pandemic, groups traveled the country on Habitat for Humanity trips, volunteering at sites in Kentucky, Maine, Ohio, and Georgia and Louisiana, including several trips to rebuild housing damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. They also performed similar service projects at home in Chicago. 

As they have before most of these adventures, our friends at Walsh Construction provided our young people with training on the safe use of power tools.