Students and volunteers from across the city will unite Saturday to partake in the Super Saturday of Service in Baton Rouge for the first time, which is connected with various projects under the same name in New Orleans presented by the Super Bowl XLVII Host Committee.
Volunteers will work with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge and host committee sponsor BASF chemical company from Geismar on various projects in the Rosewood neighborhood near Gardere Lane in south Baton Rouge.
The site contains more than 40 existing homes and, once completed, will house 55 families.
“We’re going to be raising the walls on one house, pre-building two houses, painting a house and landscaping seven houses,” said Lynn Clark, Executive Director for the Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge.
More than 200 volunteers are expected Saturday. Approximately 100 people will be present from Habitat for Humanity and the rest are expected to be employees of BASF, according to the company’s Communications Specialist Elizabeth Canfield.
Bill Willis, third year law student and member of the Public Interest Law Society’s community service committee, will attend the project Saturday along with around 10 additional law students.
According to Willis, PILS members attend a community service event each semester and, after hearing about the Super Saturday of Service, the group signed up.
“As future lawyers and future area professionals, we all feel that it’s an obligation of ours to give back to the communities that we’re going to be working in and serving,” he said.
Laura Martin, fifth year architecture student and vice president of the University chapter of the National Organization of Minority Architecture Students, said NOMAS members participate in community service projects often. She said those who signed up for the Super Saturday of Service did so to gain hands-on experience as architects while giving back to the community.
“Service work and our involvement with Habitat is very important to our group, and we participate in a Habitat build every semester,” Martin said in an email to the Daily Reveille.
According to Habitat for Humanity of Greater Baton Rouge Volunteer Coordinator Kristen Lastrapes, around 30 additional students are scheduled to attend the service event as well.
Canfield said BASF wanted to bring the service day to Baton Rouge to offer the community a chance to help local families in need, so the company approached the Super Bowl XLVII Host Committee with a proposal to extend the Super Saturday of Service to Baton Rouge.
“We are very committed to giving back to our community and we’re really trying to make an effort to have more of a presence in not only the Ascension Parish community but the Baton Rouge community as well,” Canfield said.
“We’re going to be raising the walls on one house, pre-building two houses, painting a house and landscaping seven houses.”
