Helping Hands
Yale University students ride in to help with Habitat house
By Scott Rochat
Friday, July 6, 2007
When painting the house, it never hurts to have an extra pair of hands around. Or an extra 25 pairs for that matter.
That’s the happy situation that Emporia’s Habitat for Humanity chapter found itself in on Thursday when 25 students from Yale University hit town. The students are part of the “Habitat for Humanity Bicycle Challenge,” biking from New Haven, Conn., to San Francisco and stopping every seven days to help with a local project.
“Oh, my God, it’s great!” said Patricia Baray, the owner of the house being built at 115 Market St. She looked at all the people bustling around her before getting her own paint roller back to work.
“We’re going to get all the painting done today,” she said.
The challenge has been an annual event for Yale students since 1994. All together, 80 students in three groups are bicycling across the country. Over nine weeks, each group will travel 4,000 miles.
“A friend of mine at school did the ride last year and convinced me to apply as a leader,” said Steven Felix of Los Angeles, who headed up the group during its Emporia stay. “She was a good sell. Ten months later, here I am.”
The group also does fundraising for the New Haven chapter at different stops along the way. Ten percent of the money raised is set aside for Habitat International — this year, for a house in Botswana.
The Emporia house is the fourth one the group has worked on so far. Earlier projects on the trip were in Morgantown, W.V.; Hazelton, Penn.; and Lexington, Ky. The next planned “build” is in Ely, Nev.
The project coordinates with local chapters in advance so that the students know which communities they’ll be assisting. Other stopovers are arranged in between builds so that the group has somewhere to sleep and maybe a church to speak at.
Traveling by bicycle, of course, can have its challenges — especially with the recent heavy rains.
“We passed some spots where the water was only a foot below the road,” Felix said.
The other two groups will end their journeys in Seattle and Portland.
Baray hopes to move into the house before winter, especially because the heat is broken in her current home. She has five sons, ages 20, 18, 12 and 7-year-old twins. The three youngest children also were helping the workers Thursday.
“It’s just like a dream come true,” she said. “It’s what I always wanted — a home for my boys.”