Students repair homes on spring break

A group of 50 students from Wittenberg University in Springfield, Ohio, spent their spring break helping less fortunate families with home repair projects. The students split into five teams and dispersed across Georgia and Florida for the week.

Through the Atlanta Fuller Center, nine students helped the Fisher family of Marietta with a long list of repair projects, including replacing siding and wood, pressure washing, painting, sheetrock repairs, flooring installation, bathroom and kitchen repairs and cleaning up the yard.

The Atlanta Fuller Center for Housing is a volunteer-based, nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry that is dedicated to eliminating poverty housing in Atlanta and worldwide. The center is a part of Fuller Center International, both founded by Millard and Linda Fuller, also founders of Habitat for Humanity.

“Locally in Atlanta, our concentration is on home repairs and partnering with existing homeowners on their residence,” said Mark Galey, president and volunteer with the Atlanta Fuller Center for Housing. Founded in September 2007, the center has completed over 100 projects in the past 10 years.

The Wittenburg students went to five different cities to work with Fuller Center partners.

“I spent volunteering my time and helping a family in need. It was one the most humbling experiences in my life and I cannot wait to go back the next three years,” said student Jasmine Bryant.

Construction management students from Gwinnett Tech also joined the group to help supervise the project.

The community can give back to the Atlanta Fuller center by volunteering, donating funds and in-kind donations such as building materials, landscape tools and more.

In the late 1980s, Wittenberg established a community service graduation requirement, now a college course, to create an awareness of the needs of others and to develop more compassionate human beings who are able to respond to these needs.

In other news: TAG Education Collaborative, the charitable arm of the Technology Association of Georgia, raised $137,265 for STEM education at its ninth annual Vine Event . Of the money raised, $22,500 will be used to purchase 45 computers for underserved high school students who will participate in one of TAG-Ed's two coding camps this summer: the Tino J. Mantella Coding Camp and the Atlanta Bridge Community Coding Camp funded by The Coca Cola Company.


Information: fullercenter.org/greateratlanta/