On a beautiful spring morning in May, volunteers from the NC State College of Natural Resources (CNR) went to work tearing apart a house on the shores of Lake Wheeler. No, they weren’t crazed, they were in fact helping families in Wake County obtain a greener, less expensive way to obtain building materials by volunteering with Habitat for Humanity – Wake (HFH) on one of their de-construction projects.
Many think of HFH as home builders, not destroyers, but the de-construction program offers opportunities for HFH to earn money for building projects plus provide an excellent service in “re-use” of building materials.
And faculty and staff are not the only volunteers from the college, giving their time and expertise to Habitat for Humanity – Wake. During spring semester, the student chapter of the Forest Products Society, along with several wood products faculty and graduate students, reprocessed untreated deck boards into interior baseboard moulding for Wake Habitat for Humanity. The boards were donated by Georgia Pacific after a drying study the wood products group did for GP.
The May HFH deconstruction project's four faculty/staff volunteers [Dr. Myron Floyd (PRTM), Laura Johnson (ET), Melinda Hall (Business) and James Jeuck (Ext. Forestry)] are part of an ongoing program developed by the CNR's staff and faculty to come together and be of service to the community.
Other projects in the past year have included sorting food donations at the Foodbank, staffing the Wake County Library book sale, cleaning up litter in local parks and more. Over 30 members of the faculty and staff have turned out to participate with the CNR Volunteers, many for multiple projects.