Students Spring to Serve During Break
Westmont students were all over the globe during spring break, serving the less fortunate in a variety of settings, and were even featured in a CNN story about tourism in Mexico. Paul Vercammen, former KEYT-TV reporter and news director, orchestrated the story that featured Westmont senior Hanna Walker of Goleta building one of the six homes constructed by students in Ensenada, Mexico.
Potter’s Clay, a student-led service project in Ensenada, was started by students in 1977. This year’s co-director Jordan Evans says it was extremely gratifying to create homes for six families. “The students and contractors bonded with the families they were building for, eating meals together, sleeping at the house together and celebrating at the end of the week together,” Evans says.
In addition to building the new homes, students repaired the roof to a house destroyed in a fire while the students were in Ensenada. Potter’s Clay students saw flames and smoke from the nearby home, and the following day, they demolished the roof, ordered new roofing materials and got to work repairing the home. Several local Santa Barbara contractors, including Todd Riddenour and Jim Peterson, headed up the roofing job with about 10 students who worked extra hours to repair the home.
“It was amazing to see how a disaster became an opportunity to bless the family and bring the local community together,” Evans says. “The residents of Ensenada joined in and held a fundraiser to support the family, which lost many household items in the fire.”
Closer to home, more than 60 students volunteered and completed service projects in Santa Barbara. Shannon Hickey, a Moorpark High School alumna who graduated in December, led A Rocha, a Christian environmental initiative. The group repaired a garden and planted pots for Cleveland Elementary School students, took junior high school kids to Lane Family Farms, weeded and planted at Rancheria Gardens and learned from Master Gardener Cerena Childress at Pilgrim Terrace Garden.