Youth
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Spring Break!
Spring break usually brings to mind sun, surf, and a tropical
location, but for 20 Connecticut students from Miss Porter's School
and Avon Old Farms School, spring break meant hard work building
homes at Emerald Hollow. As part of Habitat for Humanity's Collegiate
Challenge program, the students traveled the week of March 10th
and spent three days framing a new cluster of townhomes. Many
organizations in the community lent a hand to make this year's
event successful: Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church in Trumbauersville
and Quakertown United Methodist Church provided lodging during
the build week; the Upper Bucks County YMCA allowed the students
use of their shower facilities; Christ's United Church of Christ
provided their facilities for a closing dinner; and lunches were
provided by students at Kutz Elementary School in Doylestown.
The Kutz kids also received the Collegiate Challenge volunteers
when they traveled to Doylestown for lunch and recess one day!
2008 marks the fifth year that Miss Porter's School has build
with Habitat Bucks, and Avon Old Farms School volunteered for
the third time. In addition to their hard work and energy, the
students made a financial contribution to the affiliate. Thanks
to everyone involved for making this program a continued success!
 Dream
Homes!
Tohickon Valley Elementary School hosted a Build a House Build
a Dream competition. Students participating in the afterschool
Technology and Science Association created 28 entries for the
competition. Jennifer Christmas, the club co-coordinator said
this was the largest number of homebuild a house build a dreams
designed since they began this event four years ago. Beth Adams,
Outreach Director for Habitat for Humanity, and Katherine King,
a member of the Faith Relations committee, served as judges for
this event. We were simply overwhelmed by the creativity, the
careful thought in materials and design, and the issues addressed
from energy conservation to total construction costs.
 Bucks
County Elementary Students understand the words “to serve"
Our involvement with Buckingham Friends
School's Martin Luther King Day of Service was a great
success thanks to the efforts of Dr. Barbara Keane. We had a very
productive group of kids and their parents working side by side
with two new Habitat partner families that gave up their time
this very cold Monday morning.
Working from a variety of stations, they very kindly provided
donations and the labor to provide over
*200 snack packs for our job site volunteers - yum!
* First Aid supplies for 25 people for our job site plus many,
many more!
* Sanded, painted and decorated key holders for Habitat homeowners
- they will come in handy with those new set of keys! Thank you
to Doylestown Lumber for helping out with this.
* Colored and designed Habitat Home thank you cards!
John Barclay Elementary School's Martin Luther
King Day of Service was put together by Kathy MacMillan, 6th grade
teacher from the school. She put together a morning of activities
from our Habitat Youth Programs (http://www.habitat.org/youthprograms/)
for the students. The students built and stained three birdhouses,
five toolkits and 20 key holders. Plus they constructed a ton
of Habitat Home thank you cards! They even watched a video from
the website. As Mrs. MacMillan said “it was really a nice
touch and helped the kids really understand what they were there
for.”
This is the true meaning of Act!
Give! Share! and we honor all of you who helped with this day!
Cub Scout Pack 133
Although too young to build on the construction site, members
of Cub Scout Pack 133 still supported Habitat’s building
efforts on Saturday, December 8th by providing a delicious hot
lunch to the volunteers working at Emerald Hollow that day.
Earning their service badges
 Girl
Scout Troop 1006 recently spent time at Emerald Hollow observing
Women Build volunteers at work. Although too young to assist with
building, the girls toured the site, brought delicious refreshments
for the Women Build closing ceremony (pictured at right) and created
house shaped thank-you cards for Habitat’s partner families
use. Thanks for involvement, girls!
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Habitat
for Humanity of Bucks County is dedicated to promoting volunteerism
for all ages. We feel it is our responsibility to encourage young
people to take an active role in improving their communities from
an early age.
Graduation
+ Scout Projects: Completing a graduation project
with Habitat provides the opportunity to develop leadership skills
and improve college applications and resumes while making a difference
in the community. Projects are available in construction, fundraising,
journalism, art & design, and more. >