Nearly 200 students volunteer for Habitat for Humanity event
Photos by Ralph Freso / Slideshow
Sydney Philo knows it’s easy to lose yourself among the pools and palm trees on the picturesque campus of Grand Canyon University, where she’s a student.
“GCU can be a bubble,” she said, “… and it can be really easy to forget the people who live right around us.”
It’s why the sophomore Christian studies major loves her volunteer work with Local Outreach’s Park Ministry. Two days a week, volunteers head to a nearby park and build relationships with a diverse landscape of families just outside of GCU’s gates, where she has bonded with families from Africa, Afghanistan and Mexico, to name a few.
“That has been really sweet to experience the true me,” she said, away from the pools and palm trees, “just five minutes down the road.”
It’s the same feeling she experienced Saturday at Lopes Go Local, a home improvement blitz on steroids, when an army of almost 200 GCU students dispersed into the nearby west Phoenix neighborhoods to delve into painting and landscaping projects at 11 homes alongside community partner Habitat for Humanity Central Arizona.
The twice-a-year Lopes Go Local was the crowning event of GCU’s Week of Service in honor of its 75th anniversary, a week in which students jumped into more than 1,000 opportunities to serve their community by joining in more than 40 ministries and events.
Philo, brush in hand, was furiously painting the façade of Mary Ignatius’ home at 38th Avenue, just a few blocks from the university, then jogged away for a few seconds to grab a section of cardboard, using it as a guide to help paint in a neat line around a window frame. This wasn’t Philo’s first rodeo when it came to painting. Her dad, a professional painter, taught her the craft.
“I love doing park (ministry) and getting to talk with kids and have that relationship with them,” she said. “But then it’s cool doing something a little more tangible, like painting a house and actually seeing a finished product and outcome that you can see.
“I love helping our local community and the vision of helping people, literally, in our neighborhood: helping our neighbors. God calls us to do that.”
It was in 2014 that God called on GCU to partner with Habitat in what is one of the largest neighborhood revitalization projects of its kind in the nation. A year later, the university completed its first home renovation projects, the initial steps to fulfilling university leaders’ vision to return the neighborhood to its middle-class roots.
Since then, 7,500 volunteers have served 537 unique families in the community, investing 37,000 hours of work around GCU.
“We figure that’s valued at $1.3 million,” said Jason Barlow, president and CEO of Habitat for Humanity Central Arizona, who added that the university’s staff and faculty have contributed more than $6 million through its Allocate to Elevate initiative to help in those home renovations.
“We couldn’t do this without you,” he told students. “… You guys are proof that we’re here to serve our community.”
GCU Director of Spiritual Life Erik Nelsen told students before the event began, “We are the love of Christ in the community. It’s one way we can represent Jesus and who He is … If we can go out today and just serve people and become friends and be the hands and feet of Christ is what the Bible says.”
One homeowner who saw that love of community was Mary Knox, who moved to the neighborhood in the 1980s from Ohio with her family.
About 20 students arrived to paint and landscape her home on 38th Lane, which had survived two fires, a flood and termites.
It was the second time Habitat and a team of GCU students have come to her home to help.
“As a matter of fact, that gravel is the same gravel (from the first landscape project). And now they’re here again to help me,” said Knox, a nurse who teaches a certified nursing assistant skills class at Accord Health Care.
“Obviously, I can’t do this kind of work without a lot of help.”
One of those students eager to help was Josiah Panis, a freshman biology/pre-med major from San Diego. Like Philo, he also volunteers with Local Outreach, but for its soccer ministry. On Saturday, he “just wanted to do more,” he said of being part of Lopes Go Local.
He and two other students, pickaxes in hand, were removing weeds from a patch of gravel near the sidewalk outside Knox’s home.
“God tells us to love one another and love each other how we love ourselves,” Panis said. “If I were in the same situation, I’d want to get help, too. I’m really here just to help people.”
This was senior business management major Emma Lane’s fifth Lopes Go Local. She, too, is part of Local Outreach’s soccer ministry.
“It’s just fun to get together with your team and just come serve on a project like this,” Lane said. “ … I think a lot of people overthink it and think it has to be this huge drastic thing to reach out to your community.
“And it’s fun to meet the families,” she said. “Mary’s really sweet and so excited.”
Habitat is known for its work in building homes, including a recent build of two homes for the Havasupai Tribe in Supai Village at the base of the Grand Canyon – a challenging 14-week build that involved trucking materials to a hilltop and flying them down by helicopter.
But the nonprofit Christian homebuilding organization dedicated to creating affordable housing also rehabilitates homes, doing everything from critical repairs, like a roof replacement, to beautifying a home’s exterior, like much of the work Saturday for Lopes Go Local.
“You really do bond with the homeowners at a different level and meet your neighbors,” said Sandybell Rodriguez, Habitat case manager, who was visiting the multiple home improvement project sites on Saturday. “… And to have GCU out here, it’s been a really great partnership.”
Habitat serves about 200 to 250 homeowners a year on average with home improvement projects, she said, looking at the more than dozen GCU students at Knox’s home digging up weeds, painting, filling the air with youthful chatter and embodying the love of Christ in the community, as Nelsen said.
“It’s a great thing when you’ve got a group of people. The house gets transformed in the blink of an eye,” said Rodriguez.
Knox added, as her home was brightened with that fresh coat of paint, “You really are transforming the neighborhood.”
GCU Manager of Internal Communications Lana Sweeten-Shults can be reached at [email protected] or at 602-639-7901.
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