Behind the Scenes of My Make a Difference Day Article

Yesterday was national Make a Difference Day. To celebrate that fact, Weber State University had a day where students went to different organizations to volunteer. I went there to cover the event for the school newspaper The Signpost.

I volunteered for Habitat for Humanity to help build a sprinkler system for a house in Ogden. The job was to basically dig trenches where the schematics said to using pickaxes and shovels. We were each assigned a team of a few people. I was in team pink with two girls named Amanda and Olivia. We were pretty much given the plans for the sprinklers and told to go dig.

If you look closely, that's me on the right in the white shirt. Photo by: Amanda Lewark

It seemed kind of weird to me that inexperienced people were allowed to just work on someone else's house like that. It makes me wonder how well this sprinkler system will actually work once it is finished. We weren't given any kind of training, we were pretty much just told to have at it.

Our team had a bit of a slow start trying to figure out exactly what we were doing but we eventually figured it out. We spray painted out the lines where we were meant to dig, which led to me accidentally getting some on my fingernail which has yet to come off. I think it may be permanently pink.

After the ground was sprayed we continued by digging with pickaxes which are deceptively heavy. As I type this, my arms are ridiculously sore, proving how little muscle I have. It took three hours just to dig out the trenches for the piping.

While taking a break, I interviewed both Amanda and Olivia for my article. We had just been digging together for the past three hours so it was easy to start a conversation. They were both there to get service hours for their dental hygiene scholarships. They were trying to find cheesy yet profound things to say, Amanda was particularly proud of her quote, "We aren't just building sprinkler systems, we're building dreams."

All in all, it was an exhausting day of digging, let's just hope we didn't screw up that sprinkler system too badly.

For the full Signpost article without the personal commentary, click here: http://www.wsusignpost.com/2011/10/22/making-a-difference-through-digging-holes/