In preparation for last weekend’s Clive Rainey build, the University of Dayton’s branch of Habitat for Humanity held one final meeting before the project started.
Art Street Studio B was packed Thursday, Sept. 20, with students awaiting the final details about the build. After several pictures and videos describing Habitat’s past work were shown, chapter president and senior criminal justice and psychology major Kevin Longacre asked one question to the crowd.
“How many of you plan to come out to the Clive Rainey build on Saturday?”
A majority of the students’ hands shot up in the air.
The build on Saturday, Sept. 22, celebrated Clive Rainey, the first volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. Fifty-five years ago, Rainey started with Habitat and while now retired, continues to share his experiences by giving speeches across the country. He helped make Habitat a household name by sharing the idea that every person deserves a decent place to live.
Rainey was in attendance Saturday and spoke to more than 100 volunteers. He delivered his speech to a crowd of the volunteers, university president Daniel Curran, the Ohio chapter and city of Dayton chapter of Habitat, and others. Rainey focused his belief that the most powerful weapon man has is a hammer.
The frame was built in the S1 parking lot near the College Park Center and then transported to another location in the Montgomery County area for a family in need.
The build was constructed on campus because of the connection between Rainey’s and UD’s beliefs. Longacre said UD has a reputation of having hard-working students in their Habitat group, known for their Marianist values.
“It was a very Clive Rainey weekend,” Longacre said. “We channel his spirit toward a constructive way for us to contribute to the community making it a great success.”
The UD Habitat chapter currently has 50 active members. Each weekend, these members head out with the city of Dayton’s chapter of Habitat to work sites. These work sites build a house for a needy family in just one weekend. The volunteers donate their time to do whatever is needed to get the house finished. This year, UD’s chapter will work on 13 different houses.
The group started its year with a birdhouse building workshop at the beginning of September. They took students off campus to teach them how to construct birdhouses, in an effort to help train and give practice to the future Habitat volunteers. The birdhouses were then donated to a local work site for use on the new houses.
“We take about 16 to 24 people a day when we work in Dayton on the weekend,” said Dana Healy, secretary of UD’s Habitat branch. “The best part of going to the work sites is using the power tools.”
For more information on the UD Habitat chapter, visit udayton.edu/students/habitat.
