Last year, while attending an event introducing Yale students to Elm City businesses and organizations, Monique Vulin became curious when she watched a man building a table. "I thought, 'Wow, that looks really cool, I would love to be able to do construction,'" she recalls. She was amazed when the table-maker told her that, in spite of her inexperience, she could actually help to build houses.
So began Ms. Vulin's involvement with the Yale chapter of Habitat for Humanity, a volunteer organization that helps to build homes for low-income families. She worked last year as part of Habitat's Collegiate Build, a partnership between New Haven area colleges, universities and high schools that undertook its first project -- the renovation of a home at 322 Newhall St. -- nearly two years ago.
After making weekly trips to help out on the project, Ms. Vulin was asked to become a team leader, a job that entails coordinating the efforts of one volunteer group. At first, she felt hesitant about taking on such a responsibility. "I wasn't sure I should be managing a group of volunteers when I basically knew nothing about construction," says the Saybrook College junior.
However, spurred by her enthusiasm for the project and by the encouragement of other team leaders, from whom she learned some tricks of the trade, she agreed to take on the task. She also credits her decision to Habitat for Humanity construction manager Bill Casey, who has taught her and other student volunteers "an enormous amount about building homes," says Ms. Vulin.
It wasn't long afterward that Ms. Vulin was asked to tackle yet another assignment for the Collegiate Build project: serving as chair of the Family Partnerships Committee, which acts as a liaison between the volunteers and the family members who will live in the house and who must contribute 400 hours of "sweat equity" on their new home.
Working with Habitat families. "Getting to know and work with the families is really nice because instead of just putting up walls, you do your work knowing who is going to be living within them, and you have the opportunity to work side by side with them," says Ms. Vulin.
This year, Ms. Vulin was elected coordinator of Collegiate Build, which is now working on its second project at 324 Newhall St., right next door to the home completed last year. She is now responsible for recruiting volunteers from the various schools (there are currently about 200) and working closely with Mr. Casey to coordinate the efforts of anyone involved with the project. In addition, Ms. Vulin also spends about six hours every weekend helping to construct the home.
"What I love about it is that it's so different from anything else that I've done," says Ms. Vulin, who is majoring in psychology. "It's so hands-on, and it is incredibly rewarding to go to work on a Saturday, start on a roof and leave at the end of the day seeing half a roof put up."
In addition to her work with Habitat for Humanity, Ms. Vulin travels twice a week to New Haven's Edgewood Avenue School, where she teaches Spanish in an after-school program to youngsters in kindergarten through 4th grade. Since her freshman year, she has served as a "Big Sibling" to a young girl who attends New Haven's Katherine Brennan School. She also works 10 hours a week as a clerical assistant for the Association of Yale Alumni.
Last year, even her spring vacation was geared toward community service. She was one of 25 Yale students who helped build a Habitat for Humanity House in Boca Del Ray, Florida. "It was great because we could work all day and then go to the beach to relax," says Ms. Vulin, who spent last summer as a President's Community Service Fellow working with New Haven youth through the Summerbridge program at Hopkins School. Next summer she will lead a cross-country bike trip, from Washington, D.C. to San Francisco, to raise money for Habitat for Humanity of New Haven, Inc.
Her interest in serving the community is due in part to the rewards the experience brings her, says Ms. Vulin, an aspiring teacher. "I just love to be out in the community doing different things, working with children and meeting nice people from all walks of life," she explains. "It's what makes me happy; I don't think I would be nearly as happy if I couldn't be doing the things I do outside of Yale."