Et cetera : NCCC Team Hits Home in Henryville

By: Justine Miller NCCC team, Maple 5, arrived in Henryville six months after the March 2 tornado swept through the small town and destroyed hundreds of houses and shook up the community. Upon arriving, the team took notice of the still fallen trees on the hillside adjacent from the newly rebuilt high school near the Twin Oaks Subdivision where the team would work with Habitat for Humanity to build 10 new houses. Several Habitat for Humanity affiliates across Indiana and around the country came together to coordinate a blitz build, translating to 10 houses in one week. Maple 5 first worked on perfecting the foundation and preparing for the blitz build which brought in over 1,000 volunteers from all over the country. During ‘Raise the Roof over Southern Indiana,’ the title for the blitz week, members of Maple 5 jumped in with other volunteers and worked on construction as the walls came up, as well as several logistical tasks such as tool resources and morning traffic. A large part of this work was volunteer management and teaching the skills already learned previously to other volunteers. Maple 5 member Chris Hays, 20, from Morgan Hill, California, said it was amazing to work with a variety of people who came together to make this happen from all walks of life, ages, and levels of experience. “What really unites them is trying to help other people and do something outside of themselves,” he said. As this is the last project for Maple 5’s service year, Hays said it was a really nice way to wrap it up and get a chance to work closely with community volunteers. “Personally, I was thrilled to work with Habitat because back home my family is currently living in a Habitat house, so I had previous experience with the organization and really love the work that they do,” he said. “I was really excited to contribute to the lives of 10 families the way that Habitat changed my family’s life.”