NC State officials and volunteers gathered Saturday morning to celebrate the nearing completion of 11 Habitat for Humanity houses, the culmination of a year of volunteering and $650,000 in donations as of writing, and according to NC State, the largest Habitat build ever associated with a U.S. college chapter.
Abdelghani El Mourid is a member of one of the partner families who will soon move into and begin paying for the newly completed houses. Members of the family came to work days at the site nearly every day since each’s approval. El Mourid said he was excited to receive the call from Habitat that he was approved to own one of the homes, and that it was “a great experience” to see the support of volunteers at the build site after that.
“That was my favorite call,” El Mourid said. “That was one of the best calls I have ever had.”
El Mourid is scheduled to move into the house in June, when construction is scheduled to be completed, but has to wait until at least 2018 before his wife Chaymae Essalhy can join him. She is currently waiting in Morocco for her immigration case to be heard by the National Visa Center, the United States federal body responsible for reviewing immigrant visa petitions.
NC State Athletics was one of the platinum sponsors of the Build-A-Block project, paying the equivalent of the construction of one of the houses, $65,000. According to NC State Athletics Director Debbie Yow, all 23 NC State varsity teams sent student athletes to volunteer during construction.
“It was an initiative that the campus wanted to sponsor, campus-wide, and so we just adopted it as well as part of the campus,” Yow said.
Some NC State and Habitat for Humanity officials cited as part of the initial inspiration for the project a similar undertaking started around 2010 by the UNC-Chapel Hill chapter of Habitat for Humanity. That project resulted in the completion of 10 houses, while the NC State project will complete one more than that.
“It is competitive against the Tar Heels, but another win for the Pack,” said Smedes York, NC State alumnus, former NC State basketball player and former Raleigh mayor.
As chair of the Red Ribbon Committee for the project, York says he was charged with raising funds and getting community support for the project.
“Quality of life starts with a good home and a good job, and we can’t necessarily provide the job, but we can help provide the home, and to have these folks rooted in the community, have a nice home to live in, to be a contributing part of the community is very very important,” York said.
The $650,000 raised so far, which has accumulated since the announcement of the project at Packapalooza in 2015, is shy of the $715,000 commitment for the project.
Sarah Paluskiewicz, a graduate student studying textile engineering and co-chair of Build-A-Block, said that money for the project came from three separate sources: NC State, Habitat for Humanity and community fundraising.
“The community has brought in sponsorships through the Red Ribbon Committee,” Paluskiewicz said. “The students have brought in money primarily through Shack-a-Thon and Habitat Wake has done a lot with corporate sponsorships.”
Mike Giancola, associate vice provost and co-chair of the project, echoed the importance of the individuals who volunteered their money through Shack-a-Thon and other fundraising efforts, but also those who spent time on site constructing the houses.
“To be able to have the opportunity to give back, that’s an important value at NC State,” Giancola said. “Being on the site has allowed all the volunteers, but especially students, to see that their efforts do make a difference, and now 11 families benefit from that effort.”
Tripp Pearce, a senior studying environmental engineering and president of NCSU's Habitat for Humanity Chapter for the 2016-2017 year, Sarah Paluskiewicz, a graduate student studying textile engineering and Build-a-Block co-chair, and Chancellor Randy Woodson talk before the Build-a-Block dedication ceremony. Pearce and Paluskiewicz presented Woodson with a wooden hammer before the ceremony in which eleven townhomes were dedicated to the partner families at the Lake Wheeler Build-a-Block site on Saturday, May 6, 2017.
