Habitat for Humanity is a global non-profit housing organization that works in communities in more than 70 countries. We have one in Moncton! MtA has worked alongside the Moncton chapter and has gone to the Southern United States (since it is still warm there in February). A misconception about Habitat is that it is a handout. People in the community and all over the world partner with Habitat to build or improve a place they can call home. Habitat homeowners help build their own homes alongside volunteers (which they call sweat hours) and pay an affordable mortgage.  

Okay, lovely, but how did you get involved? 

I’ll be honest, it was a bit of an accident. I was hoping to qualify for a national competition but fell short and suddenly my spring break was wide open with less than a month to plan anything. 

Flashback to about a month before when someone messaged my best friend saying, “Are you at all interested in going to Alabama over spring break?" We laughed about it and vaguely entertained the idea for a while. But sitting in that dressing room after my team lost, I sent her a message saying “I guess we’ll go to Alabama.” 

And that is exactly what we did. 

We drove on a bus down to Alabama and worked alongside folks from the area building, landscaping and painting. I found a love for tiling and a man named Bob (who we aptly nicknamed Bob The Builder behind his back). 

I had so much fun during the trip, I decided to apply to be a member of the next year’s exec. As all exec’s do, we had our ups and downs. In fact, standing outside of the Black Duck on my way to a meeting with Moncton’s head of Habitat for Humanity, I got a call offering me a position to work in France. I could not tell you what really happened in that meeting, but I can tell you that the exec team was understanding and flexible. Now with COVID, we aren’t too surprised how much we can do together while physically apart, but at the time we were proud of ourselves.  

We created bonds between Mounties of all ages, departments and social circles. We made inside jokes and played a lot of chess. We learned so much about one another and about building. One day we even went bowling (and showed up at the wrong bowling alley). It was one of my favourite spring breaks of all time.