Students volunteer in Darlington County over Spring Break
Worcester Academy students work on the Habitat for Humanity House on Edwards Ave. in Darlington
By Melissa Rollins, Editor, editor@newsandpress.net
Though the weather was cold, spirits were high on Edwards Avenue last Thursday morning. Students from Massachusetts were starting their third day of work on the Habitat for Humanity home being constructed there.
Worcester Academy students, along with faculty advisor Steve Scott, were working on the roof. Scott said that this was the fourth year he and his students had come to South Carolina.
“We have gone everywhere from Florida to Pennsylvania to North Carolina,” Scott said. “Four years ago, we were supposed to go to Florida and we wound up not being able to. So two or three weeks before we were supposed to leave, we didn’t have anywhere to go. We called Collegiate Challenge, the organizer for Habitat, and said that we needed a place to go. They called Mark Haenchen up and he already had a group coming down but they were able to accommodate us. That was probably one of the best trips we’ve had.”
Scott said that during that trip, students were able to interact with the person who would be the owner of the house once it was completed.
“We got a chance to meet this wonderful woman Shirley,” Scott said. “We were working on her home and she brought in meals and sat down to talk with us. That allowed us to have a bond that was not breakable. We always wanted to go to a different place and experience a different part of the county. It was just different when we got to South Carolina. Every year we would talk about where we were going to go and we just kept coming back to South Carolina.”
Scott said that the private school has a club specifically geared toward working with Habitat for Humanity. Students are also required to have 60 hours of community service before they graduate.
Louis Scumaci
“Our club goes back to 2004 when we first started with Habitat,” Scott said. “Our school co-sponsored a Habitat build. I was the faculty adviser for that and I brought kids every Wednesday and Saturday and we built a duplex from the ground up.”
Louis Scumaci, a junior at the academy, said that he had been enjoying the trip and the work they had been doing.
“This is my first trip; my brother did it two years when he was back in school,” Scumaci said. “I was curious to see what Habitat was all about since I had not been able to go to any of other things around school. I decided to take Spring Break and come on this trip and see what was going on.”
Scumaci said that his brother was able to give him some insight into what the trip would look like.
“My brother told me about how his experience was and what he did,” Scumaci said. “He was skeptical at first but then he had a lot of fun. I’ve done stage crew at my school for three years so, even coming here for the first time, I was the one who knew a little bit about what was going on. I knew about all the tools and what they did.”
Scumaci said that most of the work he had done was on the roof, which he thoroughly enjoyed.
“The roof was a lot of fun because it was scary at the same time,” he said.
Scott said that he plans to continue to bring students to South Carolina as long as he is able.
“The people down here are just so nice, warm and welcoming,” Scott said. “They would do anything for us. We stay at St. Luke’s Church in Hartsville. Yesterday was our day off and there was a note on the door when we got back in the evening. They had a dinner and they had leftovers and they left them for us. They are thanking us but we are thankful to them for allowing us to come down year after year. We call it our home away from home.”