Habitat for Humanity (Service Learning)

A beautiful Saturday morning with a little smoke in the air and the smell of MSU Homecoming! After a morning of touring our new FedEx facility it was time to jump in the car and meet a group of volunteers all with a common goal in mind for the day. Habitat for Humanity was having a "Sod Party" and a select group was invited. The time is 9:00 and as the group gathers I notice pallets of sod around the house waiting to be held and gentle laid in place.
Habitat for Humanity of Gallatin Valley is a local non-profit organization that highly depends on volunteers. Their mission is to help people transform their lives by partnering with the local community. They help construct homes affordable homes throughout the community. The volunteers and partners from the community are essential to help keep the costs low. According to the website the homeowner does by no means receive a free house. Instead they put in about 500 hrs as part of their obligation. As a reward they receive a house at cost with a 30 year mortgage interest free. 

Our group for the morning includes a few members from AmeriCorps, freshman business students, several retired people, and our leader is a retired golf course greens keeper. He is the only one that has had any experienced laying sod and gives us a little direction on how to get started. We had to string a line to provide us with a leading edge. If you do not have a leading edge most sod layers have a tendency to drift and crowd the line. We started placing the pieces of sod and within about 45 minutes had most of the backyard covered. It went quite fast given the pieces of sod come rolled up in sections of about three feet.

After we finished the backyard it was time to assist a few volunteers in prepping the front yard for sod application. Our leader showed us how to cut the sod with the tools that he had provided. We learned that you lay full width for the last row and cut the next to last row to avoid the concrete sidewalk from drying out the newly cut edge. We used a special tool that looked that was like a spade to cut along the edge of the last row which cut the strip lying underneath and allows for a perfect fit. We used a kitchen knife to cut out the sprinkler heads and any other object in the yard. Our leader became very irritated when someone forgot to either cut out a sprinkler or forget to replace the flags marking the sprinkler.

It took about 2 hours to finish laying sod around the entire house but then came a little wrap up work. All the cut scraps had to be cleaned up which were placed at the rear property line to minimize the weed growth. I thought that was a great idea. The entire lawn had to be heavily watered or more like flood irrigated to help jump start the process of adapting to a new environment. After we finished with the cleanup and watering we spent a little time getting to know each other while we waited for lunch to show up. One of the members from the organization had run to Subway to get us sandwiches. The sandwiches arrived around 11:30 but before we could eat one of the supervisors remembered there were thirty five 5 gallon buckets of paint in the crawl space that had to be removed and loaded into the back of a van. I jump down in the crawl space and handed the buckets up throw a hole to a volunteer that handed them to a line of volunteers ready to shuffle the buckets to the back of the truck. Handing the buckets up from the crawl space was like an intense Crossfit workout or a good lifting session at the gym.

We finished the task and then enjoyed a group lunch where I found out that the four members from AmeriCorps were from as far away as Peru. The volunteer from Peru did not plan to stay around and enjoy the cold of the winter. Another thing I found out during lunch had to do with the new sod. It takes about two weeks for the roots to grab hold of the new dirt and it cannot be mowed until you can no longer grab the grass and pull the chunk of sod of the surface. The sprinklers will rotate through their cycle about four times a day until then.

I felt really good knowing that the work I was doing would help a family enjoy a lush lawn for many years. I felt that I had accomplished something of value and was contributing to the transformation of lives. Working as a team is both gratifying and challenging especially when it for a non-profit. It is gratifying because to are all working towards a common goal. Several groups of strangers come together and unite with a purpose to lend a helping hand. The challenges are the lack of organization or planning. I learned that my leadership skills engage when people are not sure what to do. I found myself directing people to try and provide a more efficient process. I actually enjoy that. I also found that I was irritated with a lack of equipment from the organization or that is something that can engage my leadership antenna as well because I don’t like to stand around and wait for several people doing preparation when you can utilize more volunteers. I see the problem as a lack of planning knowing that the organization has enough of those resources donated.

However it is all a great learning experience. The lack of planning heightens my awareness for similar situations that I will encounter in the future or if I have the opportunity to share that advice with future leaders. I think it is important for a leader to direct and guide followers with confidence where there is a sense of unity rather than chaos. A leader will not only model the way but will also be able to identify one or two leaders within their group that can become a model. A good leader will have antennas and sensors going off at all times to create unity and dynamic culture whether it is in a group of volunteers or an organization of 500. Leaders are others minded.