Spring Break

The Wesley Foundation 2005 Spring Break trip to Florida was an amazing experience for everyone involved. We teamed up with the Presbyterian Campus Ministry and with the ECIR to go to Port Charlotte, Florida and work with Habitat for Humanity. Port Charlotte (more precisely, Punta Gorda) was hard-hit by Hurricane Charley during the summer of 2004. Most of our work was putting shingles on the roof of a Habitat building that was being expanded after the Hurricane damaged a large section of it. The building was a warehouse, housed Habitat offices, and was home to a Habitat store which raised money for Habitat. We also worked in the store, doing final preparations for the grand opening, and helping customers after the store opened. Other work involved cutting some blue tarp pieces for inclusion in a letter that was going to several hundred companies asking for donations to Habitat. On the final day, several people also worked to put plywood sheathing on a house near the large Habitat building.

Our experience was an extremely enriching one. Habitat for Humanity is an amazing organization that has helped bring affordable housing to many, many families. Kathleen was reading "A Simple, Decent Place to Live" by Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat, and was able to give us a lot of additional information on the organization. It is highly recommended reading if you are interested in learning more about Habitat.

In addition to working with Habitat, one of the week's best experiences was staying at Mission Unity, a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. It was run by James and his long-time girlfriend who were both recovering alcoholics. During the week, we got a lot of chances to talk with many of the people living there, as well as to attend an AA meeting. The experience was wonderful. It helped to break down a lot of our stereotypes and reservations and allowed us better understand the grace of God that has allowed so many people to overcome such difficult challenges.

The rest of this website is pictures from the trip (also accessible from the navigation bar on the left):

	See everyone who went on the trip.
	Pictures of hurricane damage. Although much of the damage was cleaned up by the time we got there, there was still plenty that could still be seen. We were told that the many empty fields one could see around town were sites where damage had been cleaned up, but the reconstruction had not yet begun
	Our work at Habitat
	A couple of pictures from Mission Unity
	Pictures from around Florida, including our trip to the beach, and a sunset cruise that was given to us as a gift by church members in the area
	More pictures of us having fun during the week

For faster viewing, the pictures have all been decreased significantly in size. For the full-sized version of all the pictures, download this zip file.

Other websites related to the trip:
The Wesley Foundation at The University of Michigan
The University of Michigan
The Presbyterian Campus Ministry (Niche Campus Ministry)
The ECIR (Ecumenical Center and International Residence)
Habitat for Humanity
An article in the Charlotte Sun and Weekly Herald about us