Note: For Katherine Allen's feature story and audio about this year's Habitat trip, click here.

OVER THE WEEK of Agora Days this year, a group of 17 Uni students (12 seniors, five juniors) kept up the school's spirit and tradition of volunteerism and headed down to Clarksdale in the Mississippi Delta to work with Habitat for Humanity.

History teacher Bill Sutton and physical education teacher Doug Mynatt drove the group down in turtle vans on Saturday, Feb. 16, and Sunday, Feb. 17. The students settled into the Habitat dorm and geared up for a week of work in one of America's most impoverished areas.

The students got up bright and early every morning to help cook breakfast and to listen to devotion, a reflective and inspirational talk led by a different person each morning. With full stomachs, the students piled into the turtle vans and headed to the work site.

The group, led by Sutton and Mynatt, and directed by local Habitat coordinator Colin McAuliffe, spent the week mudding (filling in the spaces between sheets of drywall), sanding the layers of mud, and priming and painting the walls of the house.

The students returned to the Habitat dorm for their meals every afternoon and evening. The group members spent their free time talking, listening to music, playing cards, and spending time in the yard with the neighborhood children.

At the end of the week, the students returned to C-U inspired by the work they had done and the people they had met. The Habitat trip was a successful, thoroughly enjoyable, and eye-opening experience.