The financial devastation left in the wake of hurricanes Katrina and Rita has not prevented University Greeks from continuing a philanthropy tradition.
Greek Week began Saturday with the blessing of a plot of land on which the Greek community is building a house, collaborating with Habitat for Humanity for the second consecutive year.
Autumn Caldwell, director of Greek Week, said the Greeks will finish building the house at 1670 Fountain Ave. Saturday, and the house will be dedicated in a ceremony at 2:30 p.m. on March 26. The house is being built for a single mother of two children.
Caldwell, a member of Chi Omega sorority, said every Greek organization is invited to participate.
“This year we’ve got people by the busload coming out and working hard,” she said. “The participation has been great.”
Caldwell said participants will work each day from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. until the house is completed. The work is organized into three four-hour shifts each day.
“There’s three to five groups randomly selected a day,” Caldwell said. “We allocate [the shifts] down. We keep going so every group gets a morning, afternoon and evening shift.”
Daphne Heacock, Greek executive philanthropy director, said the groups were randomly divided to allow fraternities and sororities to work together and to meet new people.
Heacock said the executive board continued the association with Habitat for Humanity that Breland Deano, current executive director, established this past year.
“We thought it would be a good way to really bring the Greek community together and give back to the [Baton Rouge] community, to come build a house,” she said.
Lynn Clark, Habitat for Humanity development director for Greater Baton Rouge, said all of the tools and materials are provided to the volunteers, and Caldwell said Habitat prepares the house site for construction.
The Greek community is responsible for providing the sponsorship of the house and a volunteer workforce.
Heacock said it costs $55,000 to sponsor a Habitat house, but the Greek community has only been able to raise $40,000 this year. She said Habitat paid for the remaining costs out of a reserve fund, and the Greek community will attempt to pay back as much of that as possible through letter-writing campaigns and other fund-raisers.
Caldwell said the Greeks raised $80,000 last year, but it was difficult to raise money after Hurricane Katrina.
She said the Greek community celebrated the completion of the house they built with a crawfish boil, but because of struggles in fund-raising efforts this year, Greek leaders opted to cancel a similar boil.
But the lack of a party has not deterred participation or enthusiasm in the housing project.
“I see wonderful enthusiasm, a willingness to help and a real understanding of what this will mean for the family,” Clark said. “I’m real excited about the future of this community, because they really seem to care passionately about people who don’t have as much as they do, and they just want to help.”
 
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