NHS Honor Society Helps Housatonic Habitat For Humanity

By Eliza Hallabeck

Members of Newtown High School’s National Honor Society added their hands to Housatonic Habitat for Humanity’s project to build two houses in Danbury on Saturday, August 6.

Housatonic Habitat for Humanity has formed an alliance with the high school National Honor Society, and since the end of the last school year a Habitat for Humanity Committee has been forming at the school.

“It went really well,” said National Honor Society Habitat for Humanity committee co-leader Nicole Davis on Tuesday, August 9. “We got a lot of things done. We were able to help put a lot of siding on the house.”

As Fran Norman, development director for Housatonic Habitat for Humanity, explained to The Bee recently, the Danbury Housatonic Habitat for Humanity site has a 100-year-old house on the property, which was gutted and is in the process of being renovated. The Danbury-based group also started building a second house on the site since the project began at the start of the year. Both houses are connected.

Ms Norman said Housatonic Habitat is a construction firm that stimulates the local economy by working with local trades and businesses, a mortgage lender that sells homes to local working families, a social service agency that teaches families with limited incomes how to better leverage finances to become long-term productive citizens, and a force for change in the local economy by mobilizing individuals, organizations, and corporations to transform undesirable properties into affordable homes that change lives and revitalize neighborhoods.

Through volunteer labor, Ms Norman said Housatonic Habitat provides the community the opportunity to enable qualifying local families to own homes. The eventual homeowners for the Danbury location have already been chosen, according to Ms Norman.

One of the important aspects of the Habitat for Humanity model, said Ms Norman, is that homeowners must also contribute “sweat equity” — hours of work on the project. This helps the family to get to know the volunteers working to build the house, and establishes bonds with the surrounding community.

Ms Norman said Housatonic Habitat is hoping to turn the keys over to the families before the end of this year.

While school psychologist Thomas Brant, who is also an advisor for the National Honor Society, said the newly formed Habitat for Humanity Committee of the National Honor Society will be strictly for honor society students initially, he said the committee will eventually be open to students in other service groups at the high school.

Nicole Davis, Hannah Marat, Abbey Doski, Emily Ashbolt, Justina Paroski, Alex Kelly, Lauren Harrison, Olivia Rowley, Jess Haitz, and Bianca Solano make up the National Honor Society Habitat for Humanity Committee. Not all of the committee members participated on Saturday, and more members of the National Honor Society attended, according to committee co-leader Hannah Marat.

Mr Brant said Nicole was interested in starting the group at the high school after previously volunteering with Habitat for Humanity.

“It opened my eyes to how much you can do for one person, and how appreciative they can be,” Nicole said about her first opportunity to work with Habitat for Humanity.

Habitat for Humanity Committee of the National Honor Society will also be working toward big goals this school year, said Mr Brant, including a trip to work on a Habitat for Humanity site in Denver, Colo., over the district’s February break and working toward a larger goal of building a Habitat for Humanity house in Newtown. For the Denver trip, Mr Brant said the group will need to raise between $10,000 and $15, 000, and students and parents can keep an eye out for fundraisers throughout the school year. He also said prospective members of the Habitat for Humanity Committee of the National Honor Society will have chances to participate throughout the school year.

Hannah said volunteering with Habitat for Humanity offers a chance to “get to see the direct results of helping a family and helping to start a home.”