<lstered by generous CSA funding, Carleton College Habitat for Humanity is sending 52 students on spring break trips this year. Participants will first spend one week on campus participating in local volunteer projects, then will then travel to participate in the Spring Break Away Collegiate Challenge. Students will volunteer in four cities in the Midwest: Forth Smith, Arkansas; Waterloo, Iowa; Omaha, Nebraska; and St. Joseph, Missouri.
Habitat for Humanity International seeks to eliminate substandard housing and homelessness from the world and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action. Habitat has built more than 225,000 houses around the world, providing more than 1 million people in more than 3,000 communities with safe, decent, affordable shelter. Through volunteer labor and donations of money and materials, Habitat builds and remodels simple, decent houses with the help of homeowner (partner) families and other volunteers. The houses are sold to partner families at no profit and financed with affordable, no-interest loans. The homeowners’ monthly mortgage payments go into a revolving Fund for Humanity that is used to build future homes.
The Habitat for Humanity Spring Break Away Collegiate Challenge was started in 1989 by the Rev. David McDaniels as an alternative spring break program for college students. Collegiate Challenge has become one of the largest school break programs in the world. Participants donate thousands of hours of volunteer labor and over $1 million to host affiliates each year.