Montini High School students help build Kentucky home through Habitat for Humanity

During spring break between March 26 and 31, five students and two teachers from Montini Catholic High School in Lombard headed to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, to team up with Hardin County Habitat for Humanity to help provide affordable housing to those in need.

Montini teachers Denis Block, who also is Montini’s Lasallian Youth Group moderator, and Barry Briggs traveled with senior Howard Hall, juniors Blake Holtquist, Zander Montgomery and David Hernandez and sophomore Henry Dawson, arriving in Kentucky on March 26. Their first stop was a Kroger grocery store to stock up on nourishment and supplies for the week. The group was housed and fed nightly at Grace Church in Elizabethtown.

Habitat for Humanity is a global nonprofit housing organization working in local communities across all 50 states and in about 70 countries, according to a news release that said Habitat’s vision is of a world where everyone has a decent place to live.

For more than 30 years, Habitat has provided volunteer opportunities to high school and college students during spring and summer break. Since the program began in the late 1980s, more than 260,000 have committed to building safe, affordable homes across the U.S. Block and his teams have been traveling once, sometimes twice a year to aid in the effort and learn about substandard living conditions and how affordable housing builds strength, stability and self-reliance for homeowners.

“My interest in going on these Habitat trips started when I was in high school as a way to help those in need while working with my hands,” said Block, who hopes to inspire his students the way he was inspired by youth and campus ministers and teachers throughout his grade school, college and grad school days. “Now that I am taking students on these trips, I have really enjoyed knowing them outside of the classroom and seeing them grow as young adults. They are taking responsibility and working hard to accomplish something great.”

Habitat welcomes volunteers with any skill level on their build sites, even beginners. On-site construction leaders trained Montini’s volunteers who were tasked with drywall spackling, painting and installing flooring and trim.

“This was a great team,” Block said. “Mr. Briggs and the students were all hard workers and really took initiative to accomplish our duties.”

Dawson was happy he was able to experience the service trip.

“It was a lot of hard work and very tiring, but it felt good to be able to help others in this way,” Dawson said. “I had no idea I would be able to learn some of the things we learned, about putting up trim, spackling and painting. It was fun getting to know students I hadn’t met before. Howard made us all French toast one morning, we played basketball with some local kids and beat Mr. Briggs at Yahtzee.”

He also was glad to be able to visit Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace one afternoon and Mammoth Cave as a reward after their last day of work and before heading back to Lombard.

“It is important for young people to realize that life is not about themselves,” Block said. “It is our Christian responsibility to serve others, especially those on the margins. Not only that, but it is important to learn the value of sacrifice. We cannot always do what we want. Sometimes, we need to sacrifice our wants for the needs of others.”