Students help raise funds, provide muscle for Habitat House
May 8, 2012
$65,000 collected for home being built in Fairforest area
SPARTANBURG, SC – May 8, 2012 – They’ve sold jewelry and other items. They’ve held “ice cream days” fundraisers. They’ve sponsored a 5k run. They’ve even written their friends and neighbors – you know, the ones who are lucky enough to live in houses with addresses and mailboxes and maybe even white picket fences.
“They” are students at Wofford College who have helped raise $65,000 and provided their own muscle to build a Habitat for Humanity house for a deserving family in Spartanburg. The effort has been led by Kristina Dukes, a senior chemistry and Spanish major from Blythewood, S.C., a member of the Twin Towers service organization on campus. That group pulled in students from other groups for the project, which is being built on Vale Street in the Fairforest community on the west side of Spartanburg County – groups such as campus sororities and fraternities, Twin Towers, AWARE, the campus chapter of the American Chemical Society, and the staffs of the Old Gold & Black and Bohemian. The women’s soccer team took it on as a service project, and all team members signed up to build.
Wofford also is partnering with First Presbyterian Church and with Habitat, which also partners with local businesses for volunteer builders and sponsorships.
“It was our intention to create a way for Wofford students to work together on a project,” Dukes says. “We have so many organizations, and so many of them have the same goals and missions. We thought this would also help build a stronger Wofford community and allow us to give back at the same time.”
In addition to getting grants from sponsors, the organizations held a 5k run on campus, and fundraisers, such as partnership with Bruster’s to have an “ice cream day” on campus and a 10,000 Villages event selling fair-trade jewelry and other items. “Mainly, though, we raised money by writing letters to our friends and neighbors, appealing to them to help,” Dukes says.
Students also are lending their sweat and muscle, participating in build days at the site, which also contributes to team-building, Dukes notes.
Upcoming dates and times when Wofford students will be participating at the site are:
- Tuesday, May 8 – 1-4 p.m. (5 Twin Towers students scheduled to work)
- Friday, May 11 – 8:30 a.m.-noon (3 Wofford students and a Wofford chemistry professor scheduled to work)
- Friday, May 11 – 1-4 p.m. (8 American Chemical Society students scheduled to work
- Saturday, May 12, will be “Wofford Women’s Build Day,” sponsored by Lowe’s.
Dukes says Wofford will hold an appreciation event at 2 p.m. on Saturday, May 12, at the Lowe’s on Spartanburg’s west side (120 E. Blackstock Road). The event will celebrate the Women’s Build Day as well as Wofford’s participation in the program. (Lunch will be held from 11:30 a.m. until 1 p.m., preceding the event.)
Donors and students who raised money and/or worked on the project have been invited to attend.
The house will not be completed until June; Habitat for Humanity will schedule an official dedication after it is completed.
About Wofford College
Wofford College, established in 1854, is an independent liberal arts college of 1,550 students in Spartanburg, S.C. Wofford ranks 2nd nationally in the percentage of undergraduates receiving credit for study abroad. Home to one of the nation’s 280 Phi Beta Kappa chapters, Wofford’s historic 175-acre campus is recognized as a national arboretum. Wofford is affiliated with the United Methodist Church.
