Skip to main content
News & Events

Habitat Chat

Ink drawing of a house

Welcome to Habitat Chat
Stories from the build site, the boardroom, and beyond. This is where we dig into what it really takes to build homes, community, and hope - one post at a time.

June 22, 2026

New Faces, Shared Purpose

byTamara Dourney
Volunteers from a summer service group working together on a Habitat project in Pickens County.

"The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body."
1 Corinthians 12:12 (NIV)

Summer is usually one of our quieter seasons for volunteers. Clemson students head home, schedules shift, and June through August often becomes a season of making do with smaller crews and fewer familiar faces.

This June has looked very different.

Before the month is even over, Habitat has welcomed four new volunteer groups, each bringing different skills, experiences, and perspectives to the work. Their projects looked nothing alike, but every one of them helped move our mission forward.

The staff of Clemson University's new College of Veterinary Medicine, South Carolina's first veterinary school, selected Habitat for their team-building service project. Working room by room, they installed flooring despite having little construction experience. They also became the first volunteers to use tools purchased through a recent Truliant grant, helping turn Truliant's community investment into tangible progress on a construction site.

Volunteer in Clemson Veterinary Medicine shirt smiling while holding a shop vacuum hose in a home under renovation

Volunteer raising a fist in celebration while another carries flooring material in a room with new laminate flooring

Group of volunteers in Clemson Veterinary Medicine and other team shirts posing together inside a home under renovation

Group of volunteers standing together in a kitchen discussing the renovation project

Another group arrived through Hogan Construction Group, bringing interns from local colleges to lend a hand. Their work focused on porch posts and trim, the kind of finish work that is far less forgiving than it looks from the sidewalk.

Group of volunteers posing together outside a house under construction

Volunteers carrying lumber across a dirt yard at a build site

Volunteer using a miter saw to cut trim board

Volunteer kneeling to caulk or seal a wall corner near a window

Volunteer smiling while holding a broom in a kitchen under renovation

Two volunteers cutting a board together on a porch

Volunteer applying caulk along baseboard trim

Two volunteers working together to install baseboard trim

Purple Heart Homes also returned to the build site, picking up porch and trim work after Hogan wrapped their portion. It wasn't their first time volunteering with Habitat, and there's something special about seeing a familiar face show up ready to work. Their experience showed in the steady, careful progress they made finishing out the porches.

Two Purple Heart Homes volunteers in purple shirts working together on porch trim

Five Purple Heart Homes volunteers in purple shirts posing together outside a house under construction

Purple Heart Homes volunteer using a drill to install window trim indoors

The largest crew of the month came from mFuge, with nearly 60 campers serving on site. Together they graded a yard, installed a French drain, and ran water lines through some of the hottest days of the summer. 

Volunteers from mFuge pose in front of 519 Habersham Lane in Easley

At one point, while working, the group spontaneously broke into a rendition of "Our God is an Awesome God." Watch the video below.


They also took time to pray over the neighbors, bringing our faith mission to the forefront. By the end of their time on the build site, they were already making plans to return next year. 

Three teens in dusty white protective coveralls standing outside a house

Large group of volunteers gathered on red clay dirt outside a house

Three young men posing together outdoors on a driveway

Three volunteers talking near a truck and landscaping tools

Volunteers shoveling and moving dirt with a wheelbarrow on a hillside

Volunteers carrying buckets and pushing a wheelbarrow along a paver path

Group of volunteers posing playfully outdoors among trees

Five volunteers smiling together behind a wheelbarrow outside a house

Volunteer raking mulch along the side of a house

Volunteers shoveling mulch into a wheelbarrow

Two volunteers working together with a wheelbarrow near a house

Three volunteers smiling together holding a shovel outside a house

Two volunteers working on a paver walkway in red clay soil

Volunteer reaching to catch or throw an object outdoors near a wooden structure

Rising high school seniors from across South Carolina and the nation rounded out the June rush. These young adults represented three dynamic college access programs:

•    Clemson Career Workshop (CCW)
•    Tiger Alliance (TA)
•    Emerging Scholars (ES) 

They spent their day at Clemson United Methodist Church building birdhouses for an upcoming event, helping improve the church grounds through tree planting, mulching, and landscaping, and testing a new orientation tool being developed for future board members, committee members, and Campus Chapter leaders. Because they were completely new to Habitat, they were able to identify areas that needed clarification before the resource is rolled out more broadly.

Seven volunteers in workshop and alliance shirts standing together in front of a chalkboard wall with handwritten messages

Two finished wooden birdhouses on a table next to a hammer

Row of wooden birdhouses lined up on a sawhorse table outdoors

Rows of painted brown birdhouses lined up on a wooden pallet

Group of volunteers in orange and purple shirts building birdhouses at tables in a driveway

Large group of volunteers in colored team shirts posing together outdoors near a building

Students, faculty, construction professionals, church groups, and first-time volunteers all found different ways to contribute this month. Some worked with shovels, some with flooring tools, some with trim, and some helped strengthen the systems that support future volunteers and leaders.

This month was a reminder that Habitat's work is bigger than any one project, volunteer role, or skill set. It takes people willing to contribute in different ways, often behind the scenes and often outside their comfort zones. Whether testing a leadership resource, installing flooring, completing finish work, funding tools, or digging trenches in the South Carolina heat, each contribution helped create opportunities for local families.

We are grateful to Clemson's rising seniors, the College of Veterinary Medicine staff, Hogan Construction Group and Clemson's Construction and Real Estate Development students, the mFuge campers, and everyone else who chose to serve alongside us this month. Thank you for helping build strength, stability, and self-reliance through shelter.

MENU CLOSE