COLUMN: Friday at Habitat for Humanity
Central Michigan Life's reporter Keara Banks (left) and Central Michigan University student Madilynn Boerger (right) spent a day volunteering at the Habitat for Humanity Resale store.
I spent four years of high school volunteering constantly. Between being an executive officer of Student Council and helping run a leadership program in my community, my life revolved around servant leadership.
So this year when I spent Martin Luther King J. Day, a day of service, laying on my couch, I felt lost. My mom asked me that day when I called her how I felt not volunteering on MLK Day for once, and all I could think to tell her was, not good.
When I was given the opportunity to spend a few hours this week volunteering, I was so excited to get back in action. Alternative Breaks is a program at Central Michigan University's Volunteer Center that offers volunteering opportunities to combat issues in the community. One small hiccup: I had never worked with Alternative Breaks, and that was mildly frightening.
I had made so many connections in my hometown community that when I volunteered, I always knew somebody. When I signed up to spend part of Jan. 31 at the Habitat for Humanity Resale store with the Alternative Breaks program, I had no clue what we would be doing or who I would be doing it with.
I showed up to the event painfully early. They had me hang around the volunteer center and make Valentine's Day cards for veterans. The entire time I was waiting for my site leaders, I prayed it would spontaneously be canceled and I wouldn't have to put myself out of my comfort zone more than I already had.
Obviously, God wasn't on my side because my site leaders showed up a few minutes later.
Once our whopping group of four showed up, we reviewed information about volunteering and the organization itself.
Habitat for Humanity is a global nonprofit that partners with people in your community, and all over the world, to help them build or improve a place they can call home. ReStores, which is where we spent our day, accept donations and sell merchandise to the public at a discount of the retail price, while diverting reusable household items and building materials from area landfills.
We spent our time before leaving learning more about one another. For some reason, I had forgotten that the girls around me were also college students. We connected over our involvement in sports on campus and other people we happened to both be friends with. I feared this idea that I would be lonely or singled out, but I immediately felt comfortable in the space and felt like I quickly became friends with the other volunteers.
We arrived at the ReStore location and immediately had jobs to do. The worker at the front offered one of us a chance to paint a room, and the other three of us could go outside and reorganize merchandise. Speed is not my skill set, apparently, since I did not raise my hand fast enough and ended up working outside.
We were led to a shed that was packed with outdoor items that needed to be taken out and put back in a better fashion. I'm not joking when I say half of the objects were frozen to the ground. We were instructed to sweep leaves, which were also frozen solid, so we spent a good portion of our time using the random shovels we found to hack at the frozen floor.
At the start, you could barely walk into the room. By the end, everything was put by similar objects, and there was a pathway to look at the merchandise. I felt like a snowman, but we weren't done with our outside tasks yet.
We continued outside of the shed, moving grills and chairs to be better displayed. While still outside, an older gentleman came through and was looking through the shed.
Keara Banks reorganizes merchandise at the Habitat for Humanity store as a part of her Alternative Breaks volunteering on Friday, Jan. 31.
I'm not used to this type of volunteering. I was traditionally involved in food distribution events and local shelters, and yet this was the same wave of emotion for me. I was able to benefit someone's day, and that was why I loved volunteering.
We finally finished our outside activities about an hour in and moved right on to the next job. Since the store takes people's used home items, one job that has to be completed is cleaning and sanitizing the merchandise.
One of the things I found neat was that they have an entire room dedicated to painting. I don’t know if you have ever painted a room before, but paint is so expensive and not something most people would think to donate. We went through and sanitized painting materials that would then go directly into the shop.
I gave two and a half hours of my day, and in return, I got to meet new folks and get involved in a space I knew little about.
This experience with Alternative Breaks reminded me why volunteering is so important to me, and I would recommend to every Central Michigan University student participate in one of Alternative Break's community service events.
Sign-ups are available on Engage Central. If nothing else, do it as a chance to meet new friends and challenge yourself to get out of your comfort zone like I did.
Keara Banks is a Central Michigan Life news reporter. She is a freshman majoring in Political Science.
