Multimedia note: For an audio slideshow about this year's Habitat for Humanity trip, click here.

EVERY YEAR DURING Agora Days, a group of juniors and seniors disappears from the hallways of Uni High. What could possibly make these students leave Agora Days behind?

The Habitat for Humanity trip, of course. While in Clarksdale, a town 500 miles away in Coahoma County, Miss., the students get a first-person look at one of the most impoverished areas in America, and get a chance to help by building homes for those in need.

Not all students who apply for the trip, however, are able to come. There is an application process, in which the applicant responds to five questions concerning working with Habitat in the Mississippi Delta.

The committee, which is made up of faculty and students who have been on the trip, then reads the applications and makes assessments to determine the best candidates.

This year 17 students, out of approximately 30 applicants, were accepted to go on the trip — 12 seniors and five juniors. Accompanied by history teacher Bill Sutton and physical education teacher Doug Mynatt, they left on the weekend of Feb. 16-17, returning to Champaign-Urbana one week later.

Other adults who joined the group in Clarksdale were Uni alums Rob Zych (1972) and Helen Miller (2000), along with Sutton friends and associates Deb Adams and Troy Smith.

Habitat for Humanity is a nonprofit organization that builds homes for impoverished families. Sutton organized the first trip in 1997 with the help and support of former Director/Principal Shelley Roberts and history teacher Chris Butler.

The tradition started after Sutton’s own numerous Habitat trips to Clarksdale, some of them with former Uni students, inspired him to extend the opportunity to others.

“It started … because I had seen what an incredible experience former students had had with a church group my wife, Jane, and I led in 1995,” he explained. “I wanted Uni students to have access to that opportunity.”

Fellow faculty members Butler and Mynatt joined Sutton on the first trip. Mynatt has been on all 12 trips, while Butler has gone on 10.

This year, all the students worked on one house, but a week wasn’t nearly enough time to finish the job.

“We got to do absolutely the worst job in home construction, in my opinion — mudding and sanding ceilings,” said Sutton. “But then we got to paint a bunch of walls, which is always satisfying.”

Senior Carl Zielinski was one of 17 students who went on this year's Habitat trip. Gargoyle photos. (Click to create a slideshow)

Junior Caroline Brown (center) and senior Sarah Pfander (left) are hard at work.

Seniors Angie Jin (foreground) and Shara Esbenshade do some painting.

For his part, Sutton was impressed by the job the students did.

“The kids were quite diligent in their work, even though it wasn't as much fun as some kinds of work, like framing, or roofing, and putting up drywall. The house is now ready for painting, tiling, cabinet-ing, and finishing up. It might be done by summer, depending on how many other groups come to Clarksdale.”

However, helping construct a house wasn’t the only thing the students did.

The group was expected to be awake by 7 a.m. each day, though some would go running with Mynatt before then. Breakfast would be a little after 7, which would be followed by devotions.

By 8:30, they would head to either the house work site, the Care Center soup kitchen, or the school where 2007 Uni graduate Bianca Zaharescu is currently volunteering.

On Wednesday, the students spent only half the day at the work site. After lunch they had the choice to visit either Memphis or a nearby state park.

“In the evening, we would come back and play with kids from the neighborhood for a while, or chat, or do whatever, then have dinner whenever it was finished, then chat some more or play with kids, until group discussion time,” said junior Caroline Brown.

Zaharescu, a Habitat veteran, has spent this past year in Clarksdale volunteering at Sherard Elementary, a local K-6 school.

Before moving to Clarksdale, she had been on four Habitat trips, including two during Agora Days (her junior and senior years) and one with Sutton’s church group.

“That week, from a spiritual and personal point of view, was life-changing for me,” she said of the church trip.

“So that week was also, and not by coincidence, the week I decided that I really, personally, seriously cared about the Mississippi Delta and its people, and committed that I was going to try my hardest to legitimately do my part to help.”

Clarksdale, while famous for its role in the development of the blues, still faces immense problems in racial equity, a failing education system, an enormous unemployment rate, and poverty.

Habitat for Humanity is just one of the many community service organizations working to increase the standards of living for the people — but there’s still a long way to go.

“From my perspective, what we see in the Mississippi Delta is some of the rawest residue of centuries of American racism,” said Sutton, a specialist in American history. “That legacy should breed hostility, distrust, resentment, and worse, especially towards privileged whites, which most of us are.

“Instead, we encounter an incredible level of acceptance, love, and appreciation. The dynamic goes beyond race-based social justice — it really illustrates the possibilities of race-based social reconciliation. And it gives our students a chance to envision different possibilities for the uses of their giftedness.”

But no matter what the students learned on the trip about poverty and the effects it has on society, they learned other important lessons as well.

“For me, the best part of the trip was working with my classmates, friends, and teachers to help someone else,” said senior Rachel Hurley.

“I also love the fellowship that we experienced with each other. Everyone had more than one very deep conversation reflecting on themselves and their place in the world. Even though when we come back a lot of us experience culture shock, most of us come back with, at the very least, a better idea of who we are and what we can do for others.”

Students & Chaperones on the Habitat 2008 Trip

SENIORS

• Micah Berman
• Anna Cangellaris
• Shara Esbenshade
• Eunice How
• Rachel Hurley
• Marika Iyer
• Angie Jin
• Shivani Khanna
• Sarah Pfander
• Larissa Pittenger
• Ruthie Welch
• Carl Zielinski

JUNIORS

• Caroline Brown
• Sheri Grill
• Rachel Hyman
• Kareem Sayegh
• Teddy Zamora-Mills

ADULTS

• Bill Sutton, U.S. history teacher and trip organizer
• Doug Mynatt, physical education teacher
• Deb Adams, volunteer
• Helen Miller, 2000 Uni alum
• Troy Smith, volunteer
• Rob Zych, 1972 Uni alum