Chris Akel - News EditorTuesday, April 01, 2008 issue
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Greek Week is hitting the nail on the head this year. As part of their philanthropic efforts, UT’s Panhellenic and Interfraternity Councils teamed up with Habitat for Humanity to build one of Habitat’s seven houses during its housing Blitz Build week.
Habitat’s Seven Houses in Seven Days is an effort to develop Knoxville’s Lonsdale community from the foundation up.
“Building seven houses in seven days is an amazing accomplishment,” said Knoxville’s Habitat executive director Kelle Shultz in a press release. “We are creating in one week what represents the equivalent of six months of house builds.”
While this week marks the first building blitz within the city limits, Bert Sams, director of Habitat’s thrift store, said the event is nothing new for the Knoxville chapter.
“We built seven houses last year in a week,” Sams said. “We were supposed to try eight this year, but it didn’t work out that way. In 2001 we built 20 houses in a week. We try to do this every year. It’s a way to put a neighborhood together essentially.”
Out of the seven, UT students are building two houses, one single-handedly by the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity.
According to Andrew Davenport, senior in landscape design and member of Phi Sigma Kappa’s philanthropy committee, the fraternity raised funds for its house by holding an annual concert event, Study Daze, which featured three bands, like Knoxville-based Trotline. After a couple years, the fraternity raised $25,000, enough to become a covenant partner with Habitat and actualize its three-year effort.
“I know once it’s done that we’re going to look back and really see (how we affected the community). It’s a literal house, and we can say we’ve been a part of it,” Davenport said.
Covenant partners are partners of Habitat who raise a portion of the total cost of a house and provide most of the building labor. The total supply and building cost of any one house can be anywhere from $70,000 to $75,000, Sams said, but this is eventually paid for by the home-owner with a 25-year, no interest loan. Habitat home owners also have to serve 500 hours of “sweat equity” or Habitat service by helping to build their houses, attending one year of budget classes and participating in home maintenance and construction programs. Their monthly payments go into a revolving fund to aid the construction of other Habitat homes.
“It’s a great way to reach out to the community, do hands-on work and see how the family is going to benefit,” said Laura Nishida, vice president of public relations for UT’s Panhellenic Executive Council. Panhellinic and the IFC are jointly funding another house as covenant partners just down the street from Phi Sigma Kappa for Greek Week.
According to Andrew Godbold, executive vice president of the IFC, plans were laid for the Habitat house by last year’s IFC members in order to unify the Greek community and improve students’ perception of fraternity and sorority life. Some IFC members attended Habitat’s development efforts on the October Road subdivision last year and connected with Habitat staff.
“None of us knew if we could pull this off. This is a huge thing,” Godbold said.
Now a year later, Godbold and Nishida are both excited about this week’s progress.
“Nearly every fraternity and sorority is participating,” Godbold said. “We’ve got some people who’ve never picked up a hammer before. For the most part we’ve had outstanding turnout, an unbelievable show of volunteers and volunteer spirit.”
So far Blitz Build week has been a success for both houses.
“When they need guys we send guys down to do some heavy lifting,” Davenport said. “It’s been fun, and we’ve met a lot of nice people. Twenty or 30 years down the road we can come back and say, ‘we built this.’ It’s great ... keeping in touch with the family. We can drive by (the house) and play basketball in the afternoon.”
Blitz Build continues through this week until Saturday, April 5. On any given day, 300 to 400 people work on all seven sites during two shifts, Sams said. Out of those, Phi Sigma Kappa brings about 45 brothers per day. Panhellenic and the IFC bring about 60 students, Godbold said.
“We call ourselves UT Volunteers and these are the events that allow us to show everybody what we’re all about,” Godbold said.
