Alumni

STUDENT | EXTRA CREDIT

Roof Raiser
A life-changing experience building houses for the less fortunate inspires Megan French '08 to dedicate herself — and her future — to the cause.

By Lindsay Beller

Habitat for Humanity intern Megan French '08 installed the windows on the house located behind her. The home is part of a Waukegan subdivision called Carter Crossing that will eventually house 33 families. (Photo by Chip Williams)

As a new college student in 2004, Megan French '08 was more interested in partying than in figuring out what she wanted to do with her life. "I had a crash and burn mentality," she says. That is, until a spring break community service trip to Foley, Alabama, later that year changed everything.
 
About six months after Hurricane Ivan devastated several areas around the Gulf of Mexico in September 2004, French and a group of Lake Forest students arrived to help build homes with Habitat for Humanity, an international organization that seeks to eliminate homelessness and provide affordable housing for individuals and families. They worked alongside a woman named Vicki Mimms, who had lost her apartment in the violent weather and was offered a new home with Habitat as long as she put in "sweat equity" and met various other criteria required by the organization.
  
French had hardly hammered a nail let alone built a house, but she had a transformative experience working with Mimms in Foley. She even refused to leave until every last piece of vinyl siding was in place, despite cries from her classmates to get on the bus so they could make the 15-hour drive back to Lake Forest. "I told the people we worked with, 'you changed my life,'" she says. "You set me on this course of action."
  
French's hard work and dedication made an impression on Mimms, who raved about her and the group in a segment that aired on the Weather Channel about the aftermath of the hurricane. When French received a phone call from her high school mentor telling her that he had seen the interview, her life took on new meaning. 
  
"This is what it's all about," says French, who grew up in nearby Elk Grove Village, Illinois, and participated in community service efforts in high school. "It's about making a difference in someone's life."
  
Several of the 20 students who had gone on the trip meshed so well together that they decided to start a Habitat for Humanity chapter on campus. French and Kate Otto '08 became the leaders of the group, which has gone on "build days" around the North Shore, held events to promote awareness about the goals of the organization, and conducted fundraising to help pay for the annual spring break service trips. 
  
In 2006 French felt so strongly about the work done by the organization that she decided to take it a step further by planning an additional service trip during winter break. When she suggested the idea to Habitat advisor and Lecturer in Music David Amrein, he promised to support her efforts to organize a trip back to the Foley area. But she took care of every detail on her own, he says, from submitting the necessary paperwork to raising money to finance the trip to ensuring students became certified to drive College vans.
 
French also took on a leadership role once the group arrived in Alabama. For instance, she carried on the tradition of "highs and lows," in which every volunteer sits together at the end of each workday to talk about their best and worst moments, a cathartic exercise that helps volunteers express frustrations and preserve special memories from the trip. But she wasnÕt afraid to let her peers know if they stepped out of line. 
        
"She balances being a peer and being a leader, which is not an easy thing to do," Amrein says. "I always joke on the trips that I am second in command."
        
As a psychology and history double major with a minor in women's and gender studies, French never thought she would spend so much time looking at blueprints and figuring out how to build drywall, construct sheds, and install siding. She credits the organization's hands-on approach to teaching her how to do the work. "They show you once how to do it and then watch you do it," French says. "It's the Habitat mentality — putting trust in people and hoping they work out okay."
 
She finds the most rewarding part comes at the end when the final touches are put on a house and the occupants are ready to move in.  This occurs during a ceremony in which pre-built walls are erected onto the frame of the house.
 
French saw this happen during a trip to Alabama last year. "You see a house built before your eyes and 200 people are there watching," she says. "One of the coolest experiences was seeing it come together so quickly and seeing all walks of life come together for a common goal."
 
With five trips under her tool belt, including three to Alabama, one to New Orleans, and another to Erie, Pennsylvania, French now holds an internship with the Lake County Habitat for Humanity affiliate, where she helps manage the organizationÕs Web site, conducts other communications-related work, and will have the opportunity to sit on the committee that selects who gets a home.
 
French has also taken the lead in planning the annual spring break trip to South Carolina in March, which will have marked her sixth and final service trip as a Lake Forest student.
 
But her work with Habitat and building homes for those less fortunate is far from over. After graduation French plans to return to the Foley area and work with Habitat as an AmeriCorps volunteer,  although the area has been nearly rebuilt since Hurricane Ivan struck four years ago.  "That's where my heart is," she says. 

Lindsay Beller is the editor of Spectrum.