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Habitat for Humanity in Seguin welcomes some out of state help

Seguin, TX, USA / Seguin Today
Habitat for Humanity in Seguin welcomes some out of state help

Photo courtesy Alex Rojas



(Seguin) – A group of out of state high schoolers spent their Spring Break putting the finishing touches on the latest house to be built by Guadalupe Valley Habitat for Humanity. The group of young ladies, from The Ethel Walker School in Connecticut, wrapped up their visit to Texas with the dedication of the Montanez House located in the 900 block of Allende St.

The annual trip to assist the Seguin Habitat chapter is part of the Connecticut for Collegiate Challenge.

Recognizing the girls for their hard work this past week was Madeline Zwicke Dalman, the executive director of the non-profit Habitat organization.

“They’ve actually been coming out to build with Habitat in Texas for the last decade and so, they are back in Seguin for the third time, and they give up their Spring Break instead of going on vacation or going to the beach, they come to do service work and to serve other communities outside of their own. These girls they are high school age, and they are an all-girl school and so they work really hard. They always surprise everyone. They are some of our hardest working volunteers and we are just so thankful to have them come back here year after year. This house actually finished a week early because of their help with them coming out every day. We were able to finish a week early and they knocked out all of the landscaping, all of the punch list items, touch up paint – they did the final clean inside the house, they finished putting up the fence, planted trees, finished the shed in the back and so they’ve been working really hard this week,” said Dalman.

Excited to have come back and actually see a completed build was Alexia Grech, one of the high school volunteers. She says the experience has once again been amazing.

“This is my second year on the Habitat trip with my school. I’m at Ethel Walker. It’s a ton of fun. We come down here every year for about a week and we do four days on the job site, so we work with the core group and we learn all different things. Last year, we worked a lot on walls. This year was the first time that we were able to work with one house and see it through. It was awesome to be able to meet the homeowner and work with the homeowner. We really didn’t have that experience last year so that made it a lot more special and personal. This year, we also got a special experience to see a lot more come together. A lot of us agreed, we saw the house become a home. For a lot of us, that was super special – just seeing everything come together. We laid all this sod yesterday which was gorgeous afterwards. So, it’s a crazy transformation. Just watching it all happen is amazing. It’s so much fun,” said Grech.

Grech says while some opt for the beach or time on the couch, this local trip to Texas, for her, has always been fulfilling.

“It’s an amazing opportunity to come down here — A, to get immersed in the culture of Texas just to see all the beautiful things that we saw. We did a little sight seeing which was super fun. But hearing all the girls in past years talk about their experience with Habitat, I knew it was something that I had to be a part of. They would come back with such amazing stories about the people that they met, the people they worked with and some of the lessons that they learned – a lot of valuable lessons about working hard and learning new things, trying new things, resilience. So, I had to try it out and see what it was all about because I wanted to see every part of it and I got that experience that I was looking for,” said Grech.

While most of their time in Seguin was spent building a home, all other times were spent sightseeing and experiencing the area.

School leaders say plans for the next time have already officially begun.