QUESTION: What can young people do?

Habitat for Humanity International has very specific rules about what children and teens can and cannot do on the construction site. However, we do want to encourage young people to get involved in community service, to understand the circumstances of those less fortunate, and to be active participants as their church, club, or other organization works on a Habitat house.

From time to time a Brownie troop will plant flowers or bake muffins for our volunteers. One summer, a pre-school class made sack lunches and brought them out to the construction site. Of course, we stopped construction and gave them a well-supervised personal tour of the house framework.

Over the years, we’ve come up with some creative ideas on how children and teens can help with a Habitat house, and yet stay safely within the limits placed on us by Child Labor Laws, insurance policies, Habitat for Humanity International rules and guidelines . . . and plain old common sense.

If your church or other organization is working on a Habitat home, the children can help with awareness and publicity. They can draw posters or hand out flyers or brochures after services or at other gatherings. They can create skits about what it means to live in inadequate housing.

Youth groups or Scout troops can host spaghetti suppers, chili cookoffs, rummage sales, or other fundraising activities. It may be helpful to set a fundraising goal by identifying how much it will cost Habitat to purchase a box of nails, a bathtub, a window, a set of roof trusses, etc.

Landscaping is a project that can combine both fundraising and hands-on work for volunteers of all ages. Habitat will lay down a layer of topsoil and will provide grass seed and straw (if needed.) Volunteers scatter grass seed and straw, prepare flowerbeds, plant shrubs and flowers and trees, and mulch the flower beds. They can also provide steppingstones by the outdoor faucets and/or a little pad for the outdoor trashcans to sit on. We often have Boy Scouts who do this as their Eagle project, but it can be done by garden clubs, high school clubs, church groups, or anyone who's willing to organize it. Kids of any age can help with this, as long as there’s adequate adult supervision.

Young people can also work on a "welcome home” gift for our new homeowners by collecting or raising money to purchase one of the following:

· Yard tools: garden hose, sprinklers, outdoor trashcans with wheels, rakes, hand tools for gardening. Most of our families have not had a yard to care for and will need to buy the essentials as soon as they move in. A used lawn mower in good working condition will be welcome.

· A wreath or decoration for the front door.

· A "cleaning basket" for the house: laundry basket, paper towels, toilet paper, cleaning products, cleaning sponges/rags, broom, dust pan.

· Kitchen staples: flour, sugar, salt, basic canned goods or dry products (macaroni, spaghetti, etc).

· A gift card to Home Depot, Wal-Mart, or similar store to purchase ceiling fans. (If our families want ceiling fans, they're responsible for purchasing them, but we install them as we finish the house.)

Another thoughtful idea is to create a "name" for each of the Habitat kids' bedrooms, such as their names painted on a decorative placque or embroidered onto a pillowcase or throw. Craft stores sell letters cut out from wood that can be painted and attached to a stand. The point is to have something that identifies the child’s new bedroom as his. Our Habitat children often have had to share a room with several siblings, parents, or other relatives. Or maybe their sleeping area was a closet. In one family the father, mother, and three young boys slept together in two twin beds pushed together. Another family of four slept on sofa cushions and mattresses in the unfinished attic of a relative’s house. In another family, a teenager slept on the sofa in her grandmother's house. We can give you info on the children as soon as we assign the house to a Habitat family.

Use your creativity to include school classes, youth groups, Scout troops, and individual children and teens. It can be a very rewarding experience for everyone involved, and can set the stage for more extensive community service as adults.