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MCCC Students Head to Not-So-Tropical Michigan for Spring Break

Montgomery County Community College students selflessly build for Habitat for Humanity in Kent County, Mich. during spring break.

Traveon “Trey” Henry, 20, of Collegeville, said he wanted to build character.

For five days starting March 13, Trey and 11 fellow Montgomery County Community College students gave up their traditional spring break to work on Habitat for Humanity houses in Grand Rapids, MI, where Henry got the opportunity to build—and demolish and sand and paint—things a shade more tangible than character.

Habitat for Humanity’s Collegiate Challenge program is a year-round alternative break program that enables groups of teens and young adults to travel to more than 200 sites throughout the country to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, according to a MCCC press release.

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MCCC students have participated in Alternative Spring Break, which coincides with the college’s spring break vacation (hence the name), for five years, four of which were trips to other states through Habitat for Humanity. 

The students were given real, meaningful work to do on the Habitat houses, Henry said.

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“Each day (for a) total of five days, I encountered a new home, along with a new experience—using power tools at ridiculous heights mostly, deconstruction, painting walls,” Trey said in an email interview.

Henry, who is a psychology major, current vice president and future presidential candidate for the MCCC Student Government Association, said he got something other than construction experience out of the venture.

“I got a change of heart,” he said.

“The students can use their experiences with green building practices on the worksite in Michigan to help educate the college community about what we’re doing right here on our campuses,” Jenna Meehan, coordinator of civic and community engagement and one of the trip’s facilitators, said in a press release. “It will bring a new level of awareness to the college’s sustainability initiative.”

Meehan and Diane VanDyke, a copywriter in the college’s marketing and communications office, worked with the students throughout the week to update a blog and Twitter feed about their experiences. The blog, which included photographs of the students’ activities on the trip, can be viewed at mc3springbreak.wordpress.com.

While Henry’s character may not need much renovation, he is ready to go back and do it again.

“No hesitation, yes!” he said.

Students participating with Henry in the Alternative Spring Break trip include Patricia Coyle, of Horsham; Fadwa Ferradji, of Fort Washington; Houda Ferradji, of Fort Washington; Jessica Finegan, of Bryn Mawr; Carey Kwortnik, of North Wales; Erin Landis, of Hatfield; Richard Meyers, of Huntingdon Valley; Rachel Noethen, of Horsham; Regina Outterbridge of Stowe; Matthew Pio, of Lansdale; and Hohyung Yi, of Lansdale.

Habitat for Humanity of Kent County (Michigan) was recognized for building the nation’s first “LEED-certified” affordable home. LEED, whose name is the acronym for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, is an internationally recognized green building certification system that verifies that “a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts,” according to the USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council) website.

The selection of Kent County as an Alternative Spring Break site is consistent with MCCC’s commitment to sustainability, according to the MCCC press release.

Since signing the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment in 2007, MCCC has initiated policies and procedures intended to reduce the college’s carbon footprint, including the incorporation of green building and design practices into new and renovated capital projects. 

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