Habitats in Hawaii
USU students have been helping others.
By building houses.
In Hawaii.
“I learned how to do construction,” said Melissa Maybury, a member of Utah State University’s Alternative Breaks club. “I’d never done construction before.”
Fifteen students went to Kuai and Hanapepe and helped build four houses with Habitat for Humanity and Americorps during Spring Break. They worked on anything from flooring and walls to siding and roofing, said Kanoelani Yuzon, the club’s director.
The members of Alternative Breaks meet every Wednesday to plan fund raising and service activities. The club’s name means that the students do service anytime they have a break – including weekends and Spring Break, said Maybury, a freshman studying elementary education.
“Most people are like, ‘It’s the weekend, let’s go on a date.’ And we’re like ‘Let’s go do service,'” she said.
Yuzon said, “These are kids who take their weekends to do service. It’s cool that we get to do random things.”
The group of more than 30 members serves wherever it can – whether that be in Cache Valley or Hawaii. The members have helped with a triathlon in Park City, cleaned toys for children with disabilities, raked leaves in St. George, helped build houses in Brigham City and cleaned trails in Logan Canyon, Yuzon said.
“I love all of the service opportunities,” said Maybury, who will be the club’s director next school year. “And we get to do all this stuff outside, like in the canyon.”
Yuzon said, “I like being able to travel and do community service outside of Logan and also inside Logan. I like getting to know people.”
Yuzon, a senior pre-architecture major, came up with the idea to go to Hawaii in September, and the group has been planning and fund raising ever since, said Nellene Howard, the club’s adviser.
“It was an exciting project because it was student initiated,” she said. “They worked hard to make it happen.”
The students paid for half of the Hawaii trip themselves, $350, and fund raising covered the rest, Howard said. They quilted, sent out letters to potential sponsors and sold cinnamon rolls donated by Rhodes Dough, Yuzon said.
Howard said her favorite part about going to Hawaii was watching the students become better friends.
“They were a diverse group of students, and most didn’t know each other outside of Alternative Breaks,” she said. “But they really grew close together.”
The students worked hard but managed to find time to see some of the sights, Yuzon said.
“We went during whale season, and we were able to see whales off the shore and awesome sunsets,” she said.
The group worked on the houses for four days from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and spent the evenings on the beaches, Maybury said.
“We saw about every beach on Kuai,” she said. “We wouldn’t get in until midnight, and it was so hard to get up at six in the morning. I slept for about day after we got back. But I really enjoyed meeting the local people there.”
Students who are interested in joining Alternative Breaks can visit the Val R. Christensen Service Center on the third floor of the Taggart Student Center.
“Alternative Breaks will start up again in the fall, and we encourage students to come and be a part of it,” Howard said.
-kcartwright@cc.usu.edu
USU Students work on one of four different houses they helped to build during Spring Break. The students worked on flooring, roofing, siding and walls for eight hours each day. (Alternative Breaks photos)