UM students living a ‘sheltered’ life to raise funds
2/9/10 | 23 comments

UM students living a ‘sheltered’ life to raise funds


Habitat for Humanity chapter’s Snow Place Like Home campout benefits area home projects
By Jessica Bloch
BDN Staff
PHOTO BY BRIDGET BROWN
University of Maine junior Dana Buckley (from left), second-year MBA graduate student Brenton Murray and alumnus Stephen Smith talk outside a makeshift hut Monday on the campus mall in Orono, where students and volunteers for Habitat for Humanity’s UMaine chapter will camp out until Thursday. Four students, including Buckley, and a dog spent Monday night sleeping in the shelter to raise money for and awareness of affordable-housing issues in Greater Bangor. Buy Photo

ORONO, Maine — The campfire did little to stave off the windy, chilly air Monday afternoon on the University of Maine campus, but several UMaine students are hoping their cause of affordable housing for all will warm passers-by enough this week to get them to reach into their wallets and donate.

Four UMaine students who are members of the campus chapter of Habitat for Humanity are camping out in a corner of the UMaine mall area, a project they call Snow Place Like Home, in order to draw attention to the issue of affordable housing in the Bangor area.

Their home for the next three days and two nights will be a tarp-and-plywood tent with no source of heat, which is the students’ attempt to replicate the struggles that some people in the Bangor area have to heat their homes.

That’s the reason members of the Habitat chapter have chosen for the second year in a row to camp out in the winter, instead of during a warmer time of the school year.

“The need is greater in the winter,” said Brenton Murray, a second-year business graduate student who helped start the Habitat for Humanity chapter last year and advises this year’s group. “People who are living in substandard conditions have leaky roofs or no insulation, and the lack of insulation is really a tough thing now.”

Murray said the chapter raised $2,500 in 2009 through Snow Place Like Home, $500 of which was donated during the group’s campout week. More than 15 companies have made donations this year, he said.

The funds raised go to the Bangor-area affiliate of Habitat for Humanity, an international nonprofit ecumenical Christian housing ministry that has built more than 350,000 houses around the world, according to its Web site.

UMaine graduate and AmeriCorps volunteer Stephen Smith of Habitat for Humanity of Greater Bangor said the local affiliate builds an average of about one house every other year. Home projects here have an average cost of $150,000, which Smith said can be higher than for houses in other areas because of the insulation and heating equipment necessary for life in a cold climate.

“We get a lot of calls,” Smith said. “Unfortunately we just can’t keep up with them all. One every other year is about all we can do now. We’re hoping to up that to at least one or two a year.”

The group is working on plans for a house on Fifth Street in Bangor.

Murray and other students, including Dana Buckley of Eliot, a junior studying sociology, will have to learn to cope with the weather over the next few nights. UMaine’s Maine Bound program has lent the Habitat for Humanity members some extra-warm sleeping bags, and the tent-and-plywood structure does manage to cut the wind. The group bought hand-warmers after receiving a donated gift card from an area sporting goods store.

The students hope last year’s weather doesn’t repeat itself.

“It was chilly [last year], and on the last night it snowed,” said Murray, who is from Phoenix. “We had some leakage. We woke up with snow on the sleeping bags.”

To donate or for more information, call 992-0704, Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore, which sells new and reusable donated housing supplies at a discounted price to the general public to help fund building homes for local low-income families.

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Comments
23 comments on this item
On 2/9/10 at 5:53 AM, Charette wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

This is a good story. Good luck guys!

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On 2/9/10 at 6:14 AM, Ladyslipper wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

If you guys want to do this, fine, but why subject the dog to it?

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On 2/9/10 at 7:05 AM, 420Revarie wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Admirable job! Bates college does the same thing ,just for 1 night and with luxe gear. The dog loves it I bet!

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On 2/9/10 at 7:35 AM, safedman wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Great jobs ladies and gentlemen

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On 2/9/10 at 8:47 AM, zachary wrote: Click here to view hidden comment         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden
On 2/9/10 at 9:18 AM, mainerep wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

No matter if it helps the homeless or not, their heart is in the right place! At least they are doing something instead of nothing.

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On 2/9/10 at 10:14 AM, user5225 wrote: Click here to view hidden comment         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden
On 2/9/10 at 11:14 AM, doublen wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Go Brenton! We are proud of you! Saving the world one Snow Place at a time. Stay warm!

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On 2/9/10 at 11:38 AM, barn183 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

We need more of these stories!!! Way to put your money where your mouth is!!!

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On 2/9/10 at 12:06 PM, justmyopinion625 wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

user5225: it's not a house.....it's a campus building (Memorial Union).

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On 2/9/10 at 1:55 PM, wollydevil wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Its about time that good things are said about collage kids when they do good most people can't whate till few do something wrong so they can slam all collage kids an yes barn183 we do need more good stories like these to show that 99% of the collage kids are good kids.

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On 2/9/10 at 4:40 PM, letterreader wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Ladysliiper: these young folk are making a point about the price of housing. There are people living on the street. You are truelly worried about their dog? How about a word of worry about the folks they are making a statement about? How about a word of encouragement for these young folk? I see your comment as being curmuddeonly if not actually a subtle put down. These young folk are doing a good thing: they are bringing our attention to an issue that needs looking at. You young folk go go go!

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On 2/9/10 at 5:32 PM, Ladyslipper wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

letterreader....writes" I see your comment as being curmuddeonly if not actually a subtle put down.".....and "these young folk are making a point about the price of housing"........

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I know about the price of housing ( I have worked my butt of to own my home outright).......and my comment WAS meant to be a subtle put down.....so what?

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I just read a story in the BDN last week about a group of homeless people in Surry printing counterfeit $100 bills....If someone has the savy to do that why can't they get a job and put a roof over their head??......This winter the BDN ran a story about the homeless in Bangor with a photo of a homeless person passed out on a log and the girl with him had been in the homeless shelter for 10 years.......

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Admittedly there are folks that find themselves in very dire straits and completely down on their luck....for most of these folks , this is a temporary condition and they get their life back on track.

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These Univ students have no clue about what they are doing.....except for the fact that probably some socialist professor planted this idea in their little brains....

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The dog is the victim here....do you realize what the wind chill was this week?.....The dog could have frozen to death.

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On 2/9/10 at 5:54 PM, under_the_radar wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Don't let 'em fool ya! They're heading into Center Stevens Hall and finding a cozy classroom for the night! lol Just kidding. To all of you who are criticizing their actions: AT LEAST THEY'RE NOT OFF MAKING BABIES THEY CANT TAKE CARE OF WITHOUT STATE AID! They're furthering their education and working on becoming productive members of society...Keep up the good work.

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On 2/9/10 at 5:56 PM, RalphKramden wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

On 2/9/10 at 5:32 PM, Ladyslipper wrote:

How do you sleep at night Sharon?

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On 2/9/10 at 6:13 PM, Ladyslipper wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Ralph, I sleep like a baby at nite in my own little bed, in my own little room, in my own little warm,cozy,toasty, economical home provided to me from the money that I make in my own little business......thank you very much.....Can you say the same???

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On 2/9/10 at 6:15 PM, Ladyslipper wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

PS, Ralph, I did not know that you hated dogs.....

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On 2/9/10 at 7:08 PM, letterreader wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

yup, a curmudgeon, right to the withered heart

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On 2/9/10 at 7:42 PM, Centaurmyst wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

It would be great to see them do something like this to raise money to help homeless people trying to get housing with the one thing that there really isn't help available for...security deposits. Homeless people can almost always get help with the first month's rent to get into a place but they are so often held back by the inability to get the security deposit or even the application fee or background check fee that some landlord's charge. It would be great to see money raised for setting up a fund only for security deposits for homeless people.

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On 2/9/10 at 8:29 PM, TheTruth wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Ladyslipper - somehow I knew that you were "Crazy Sharon". I enjoy your letters to the editor. They make me laugh so hard because I find it hard to believe that people actually think like you do who don't think that they are space travelers

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On 2/9/10 at 8:42 PM, sunrisemaine wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

I didn't know it snowed in Haiti :P

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On 2/10/10 at 5:25 PM, jimbastion wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

Did these guys act like REAL 'homeless' people and take a leak on my front yard or break into my garage, or hassle my fifteen yr old daughter?

Maybe so.

But I recommend they stay out of my garage.

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On 2/22/10 at 3:05 AM, budmaninheat wrote:         Repeated separate thumbs down will cause comment to be hidden

If you UMO Idiots would have took all of daddy's money you spent on the wood you bought, at the local store, for 6 bucks a bundle, could have put a few bums up at Ho Jo's.

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