Although construction on the first housing unit will not begin until next fall, the 12 students who showed up on Saturday found plenty of work to be done. The Stanley Street site is surrounded by wetlands, meaning that the environment is in danger of pollution from runoff once construction starts. To guard against this possible contamination, students spent the day ringing the site with silt fences and hay bales.
Although pleased with the progress, fundraising chair Daniel de Zeeuw '08 emphasized that the daunting task has hardly begun and total cooperation from College personnel will be necessary if the job is to be completed. "This is the first time a college has donated land to Habitat, so everything is somewhat new," he said. "We're hoping to get everyone involved next semester: students, faculty, staff and alumni. I hope every student on campus gets to go on at least one build."
The project, jointly announced in October by the College and the Pioneer Valley chapter of Habitat, is unabashedly ambitious. Plans call for one house to be built at the site each year for the next four years. The houses, though designed by Amherst architectural firm Kuhn Riddle and Associates with affordability and ease of construction in mind, are also structurally innovative, and were conceived so as to minimize their environmental impact.
Although all citizens of the Pioneer Valley are welcome to aid in the building, the hope is that College students and faculty will be most actively involved. Saturday's participants were mostly dedicated members of the College's Habitat chapter, many of whom flew to New Orleans with the organization during Interterm. Ideally, however, the student body at large will shoulder the burden once construction begins in earnest.
The concept of land donation was the brainchild of James Patchett '02. Patchett presented the College president at the time, Tom Gerety, with the idea, and it was immediately embraced by Gerety and the Board of Trustees.
M.J. Adams, the executive director of the Pioneer Valley, spoke enthusiastically in the College's press release about the project's mutual benefits when plans were first announced in October. "Amherst College is clearly interested in challenging students to grapple with issues of social justice as part of their education," he said. "It's an extraordinary partnership-benefiting Amherst, the town and the students who may well find the habit of Habitating is a lifelong joyful opportunity to give back to one's community anywhere in the world."