Habitat for Humanity

So long time no blogging . . . I know! Being an RA is more rewarding and also more difficult than I ever imagined. The not-so-fun part of it is hunting residents down for signatures and paperwork and when you have 55 residents, its more than an arduous task. The fun part is programming, getting to know them, and discovering for yourself what an awesome group you have. Last weekend my residents and I participated in Outreach Tulane at the Habitat for Humanities site. Even though we hadn’t had our first floor meeting, just talking to my residents got 12 of them to show up at 7:30 in the morning and I was so proud of them!

(Here we are working hard!)

(Here is Brian, one of my all star residents! I made him stop to take this picture, he wasn’t just standing around chilling. As you can see, it was extremely hot outside and he was working up a sweat!)

(This is Lauren, another awesome resident. She was in charge of moving siding to the houses on which other students were putting up siding. )

(Here are Laine, Erin, and Richard- they were working on the interior of some houses. This is during our lunch break- I went and found them and made them pose so I could post these pictures on my blog!)

(Here are Tim and Kyle, two of my most enthusiastic residents. They actually got farther in siding their house than any other team and they were very proud of that fact- that’s their house behind them.)

(Finally, here are some of the RAs siding a house as well- the residents aren’t the only ones who get to have fun with Habitat!)

So far, its been a blast being the Leadership Village RA. My residents are enthusiastic and cooperative- we’re planning another service day sometime soon. One of our residents is actually a Habitat staffer, and she helped coordinate this for us during Outreach. We’re planning on programming with freshmen too to include them in all the cool stuff we’re doing this year. With every idea that my residents (all upperclassmen) suggest, I’m reminded of how many interesting things there are to do in New Orleans and on the Tulane campus. We already have ideas for a Halloween service program for local neighborhood children, a barbeque with freshmen dorms, a program to show freshmen how to decorate their rooms to look unique with a reasonable budget, pancake breakfasts, and more. All of these ideas are ones that have been done or resources that are yet untapped here at Tulane.

Only at Tulane . . . .