D.C. Everest seniors build 70th home for Habitat for Humanity

WESTON, Wis. (WSAW) - Students at D.C. Everest High School are giving back to the community. Through the school’s Construction Trade Program, 19 seniors are building a house for Habitat for Humanity.

Students describe what they are doing as a win, win. They get hands-on experience while a family gets a home. “This is a little something different,” Career and Technical Education Coordinator, Aaron Hoffman said. “A lot of projects that high school students build are for themselves.”

But not this project. “They start out thinking they are going to build a house, and within the first couple of weeks, they realize they’re building a home,” Hoffman explained. “A home that somebody will raise their family in.”

When the home is finished, it will be the 15th house Students have built for Habitat for Humanity, but the 70th house overall the organization has built for the community.

“It gets them a whole lot of experience as far as the real world, like today, sometimes you work in the weather,” construction teacher, Chad Pernsteiner said.

Students said they love what they are doing in the class. “It is a pretty fun class and just like being in like the construction field and building a house and hands-on activities,” construction student, Evan Groshek said.

Most of them even said they are likely to go into the trades when they get older. “It’s just always good stuff to know, whether you go into that for a career or not,” construction student, Eddie Zynda said. “We’re just killing two birds with one stone, and you’re learnin’, everyone’s learnin’ here, and then giving a family a house, I mean you can’t go wrong with that.”

“In the past years I’ve had a lot of students say ‘I learned more in that class than I learned in my first 12 years in school,” said Pernsteiner.

Hoffman added some of the program’s previous students go on to start their own businesses. “It’s a sense of reward, in education you don’t always see immediate results on your efforts, but years down the road, we’ll be out in the community and see somebody working on a project and realizing, ‘you know what they came through our program,’ and that feels pretty special.”

One of Habitat for Humanity’s partners, Larry Meyer Construction, the company’s Owner, Alex Forer was a student of D.C. Everest’s Construction Trades Program. Habitat for Humanity said Forer has even hired several students from the program to work for him.

The class is year-long so students can see the project from start to finish. They will dedicate the home to a family in May 2022.

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