Support Our Humanity

From the desk of Moises Burbano, student assistant Office of Student Affairs

Washington Heights Expeditionary Learning School (WHEELS) is planning a Habitat for Humanity trip to Miami during Spring break.  We are a group of students who enjoy engaging in issues that deal with our community. When there are opportunities like Habitat for Humanity that provided us with chances to give back to our own communities and communities that are similar to, but outside of our own, we all like to participate.  Our goal is to raise $5,000 to cover the travel expenses for our 11 students and 3 chaperones, and donations to the actual site where we will be building.

WHEELS is located in Washington Heights, New York. It’s a relatively new Title I school in the Community School District 6. WHEELS was founded in September 2006 with only six and seventh grade and with less than ninety students. Through the years, WHEELS has expanded, and it now has over 560 students enrolled.
Our school mission is to work with families to prepare each student academically, emotionally, intellectually and socially to succeed in a college of her/his choice and beyond. WHEELS creates community in the school with the WHEELS Ways To Be which focus on the students’ awareness of self and treatment of others.  The Ways To Be include being respectful, open-minded, and present.  These are especially important because we students are pushed to experience new things  and participate in activities that will make our community a better place. Participating in Habitat for Humanity and doing community service doesn’t just make our community a better place, but it also help us be more engaged citizens and help other people who are in need.
Habitat for Humanity mainly helps those that are in need of housing by building and improving simple houses that are affordable for low-income families. Habitat for Humanity helps fight poverty and work to eliminate it as well. Volunteers strive to provide hope and a better lifestyle for those living in poverty. Habitat for Humanity has helped build and repair more than 600,000 houses and has served more than 3 million people nationwide.
Since everyone deserves a decent home, we want everyone to be able to have one.  Over our spring break, we are going to Miami, so that we can expand our views on what community is. During this trip, we will have “One week working in partnership with Habitat for Humanity, the local community and partner families to help eliminate poverty housing in the area.”In order to create strong camaraderie between the members, we have participated in workshops.We have already done projects within what we see as our local community.  Recently our group went down to lower Manhattan and helped repair a senior center. That consisted of cleaning tiles, repainting walls and welcome signs, creating a mural, and organizing the space so that it would look presentable and resourceful. With these previous workshops and situations the group will be able to apply the skills and knowledge that was learned to a larger, national community.  

http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/wheels-building-hope-2013-service-trip