December 2nd – We MAY hold a semester-ending party during our meeting, to celebrate a very productive term that was capped off with our receiving of the $10,000 State Farm Grant, which will go straight to The Dorchester Project. We’re less than $9,000 away from reaching our $50,000 peak, and we’ll need all the help we can get in achieving this goal. We can’t thank you all enough for the time, money, effort and love you’ve put into this project. As habitat followers though, you know there’s always more that can be done.

Spring Semester – 5-6 more build trips, come to the meetings to make sure you don’t miss out on an opportunity to get involved.

Raise the Roof – We’ll be holding our version of a good time sometime in the month of February. Raise the Roof will future musical entertainment from all over campus and Boston, and is bound to be a fun night. Stay tuned for more updates and don’t be shy about getting involved.

Spring Break – Heading to Palm Beach, Florida if you haven’t heard the news! A definite good time for anyone who attends.

Sleep Out – We’ll be sleeping out on Marsh Plaza in April to raise awareness for homelessness in Boston, and this year we’re looking for a number of student groups to participate.

We hope all is well, and please check in with the website, the twitter page or facebook for any more news.

Oct 31 – Dorchester (Meg)
Nov 1 – Needham (Nikki)
Nov 7 – Peabody (Nikki)
Nov 21 – Dorchester (Jon)
Dec 5 – Peabody

We’re eagerly waiting to hear back on the results of our entry to the poster contest for “350 Day” and are also expecting to hear soon about a grant we have recently applied for, so hopefully we’ll be a little bit closer to that $50,000 mark that we need to reach for the Dorchester Project.

After donating to our fund raiser, Dean Elmore takes time to sign a piece of wood that will be part of our Dorchester Project home on Dacia Street.

Don’t forget to swing by STO B50 tomorrow night for our General Meeting, as sign-ups will be held for the two build trips on the 24th and Buy-A-Board.

Representatives from the El Salvador affiliate of Habitat will be traveling to Boston this week, and members of our E-Board are planning to meet with them. This is a great opportunity to learn about their program and how they function, as BU Habitat explores the possibility of sponsorship abroad.

October 24 – Peabody (Led by Nikki or Mary)
October 24 – St. Ambrose (Led by Lauren)
October 31 – Dorchester (Led by Meg)
November 1 – Dorchester (Led by John)

We would also like to congratulate Anthony, Mary, Katie and Becca for making this year’s A Team. We look forward to your fund raising domination.

SPRING BREAK UPDATE – We hope to be signed up to head to Hilton Head, South Carolina by Monday.  Stay tuned.

Make sure to stop by our next meeting one week from tonight as we will have sign-ups for the two build trips on the 24th. We will also be discussing more opportunities to volunteer on and off campus. There will also be an opportunity to sign up for Buy-A-Board. We hope to see you all there.

Pat

First of all, thank you sooooo much to all of you who managed to come to our meeting last night. We really appreciate you all taking time out of your busy schedules to come check out our group. We have really high hopes this year and having a large membership would make our goals much easier to achieve. We hope the attendance stays up throughout the year!

Last night’s meeting was super long and we threw a lot of information at you guys all at once. Don’t be scared — most meetings are NOT like that, we’re usually done in 20 minutes or less. Here is a slight recap of last night’s meeting for those of you that weren’t there:

- We had signups for the Dorchester Build Trip this Saturday (9/19/09) and the Bedford Build Trip the following Saturday (9/26/09). The 12 people that go on this trip will be selected randomly, so don’t worry if you were one of the last people to get your name on the list…it’s definitely not the first 12 people as that wouldn’t be fair. And please don’t be discouraged if you don’t get picked for one of the first trips, as John will record who has been on one and who hasn’t. You WILL get a chance! We promise.

- We had a presenter, Greta, come from Habitat of Greater Boston. I hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did!! That was the 3rd or 4th time we’ve seen her presentation and it’s awesome every time. The Dacia Street project is really important and special since we are a large part of it. You’ll keep hearing about our “house project” — we have to raise another $20,000 to finish our sponsorship!

- We gave you some info on our A-Team, a Fundraising Action-Team that helps our Fundraising Chair, Ashley, accomplish the huuuuge job she has of raising $20,000.

SO:

If you didn’t get to sign up and want more information about the A-Team, please email amichael@bu.edu

If you want to get involved with advertising or public relations for our club, please email pnelson@bu.edu

And if you have questions about Spring Break, please email meeg178@bu.edu

***For those of you who have emailed me about not being able to make the meetings this year but still wanting to be on build trips: Unfortunately, we cannot let people sign up by email right now. Due to the amount of people we have at meetings, it is only fair to let those that can come sign up first. However, if there is ever a special circumstance or there are spots that are open, I will send out a message to all of you to let you know. In addition, helping us fundraise and spread awareness is just as important as building, and we need all the help we can get.

I think that’s it! Here are our websites, twitter, youdo@bu, and facebook. Check them out!

Website: http://people.bu.edu/habitat/home.html

Calendar: http://www.google.com/calendar/render?cid=723l08uas6msnvauj7slso86bo%40group.calendar.google.com

Twitter: http://twitter.com/buhabitat

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/group.php?gid=2200025951&ref=ts

YouDo: http://bu.collegiatelink.net/Community?action=getOrgHome&orgID=17905

Again, thank you all so much! If you have any questions at all, feel free to email me.

Lauren Harwood
Secretary
BU Habitat for Humanity

For those of you who are new to our chapter of Habitat, here’s a
little background
information:

The Habitat for Humanity organization is a non-profit group that
works
towards providing affordable housing for families all around the
world. The BU chapter usually sends two groups of students per
weekend
to a local site to help do construction, renovation, deconstruction,
and other fun stuff like painting. It’s really great and gives you a
good chance to meet people, do something a little different, and make
a huge difference for a family in need.

Our chapter is affiliated with Greater Boston Habitat for Humanity, a
really great affiliate that is currently working on an amazing
project
that we’re helping out with. The project entails renovating a bunch
of
old houses and apartment buildings on a few choice streets in
Dorchester that have been plagued with foreclosures during the
economic recession. This is a really important project (as all
Habitat
projects are), but especially hits home since it is so close to us
here at BU. Make sure to come to the meeting for more information on
this project — we have a person from Greater Boston Habitat coming
to show a slideshow and give some more information about what they’re
doing and what we can do to help. It’s going to be really amazing and
hopefully will get you fired up for this year.

Number Two: The meeting! You’ll have the chance to ask questions and
find out more about our chapter and all of the exciting things we
have
planned for the upcoming year, including fundraisers, build trips,
etc. You will have the opportunity to sign up for our very first
build
trips and learn about our new committees. Also, we’ll be selling our
T-
SHIRTS for only $10! They’re really snazzy and a must for any
hardcore
Habitat-er. With that said…

DATE: Tuesday, September 15th
TIME: 8pm
PLACE: STO-B50

Our meetings usually run an hour or less. I think that’s all the info
you need. We love new members and are really excited about the
upcoming year! Make sure to come and bring your friends!

We have our last meeting before Sleep Out tomorrow night and we’ll be
holding Sleep Out volunteer sign ups. We’ll also have a fun
demonstration on panhandling and someone from Marsh Plaza will be there
to speak about their Marathon Monday fundraiser. Same time and place
(CAS B50 at 8).

Hope to see you there!

Emily Nolan
Secretary, BU Habitat for Humanity
habitat@bu.edu