At-risk students aid Habitat

Kids attending the Structured Alternative Confinement School are giving back to the community and helping out a fellow student.

The school, in the basement of the Spokane County Juvenile Justice Center, is operated by Educational Service District 101 and serves youths who have had truancy problems or who are considered to be at-risk, often under electronic monitoring and the supervision of a parole officer.

Kathi Tribby-Moore, a teacher at the school, and John Frostad, a para-educator, read a story in the paper about Habitat for Humanity homes being built in Spokane for low-income families.

They realized that one of their students was getting a Habitat home, so they thought it would be good to get other students involved. They decided to donate 100 of the family’s required sweat-equity hours.

“Kids never tag up their own neighborhood,” Tribby-Moore said, referring to grafitti. She added that when kids do something that will benefit a community, they feel like they are part of it.

Each family who receives a Habitat home must contribute at least 500 sweat-equity hours to building the home. Only 100 of those hours can be donated by others; 400 hours must be provided by the family who will be occupying the home.

“I wish we could give them more,” Frostad said.

Michone Preston, executive director of Habitat-Spokane, said requiring sweat equity helps the families gain a sense of ownership of their homes and learn how to maintain them.

Anyone who gets a Habitat home must have income of only 25 percent to 50 percent of a community’s median income, so the home is a way to help pull the family out of poverty.

Recipients also must provide $1,500 in closing costs and make monthly no-interest mortgage payments.

Frostad and Tribby-Moore said the students volunteering for the Habitat project have flourished. Many of them are struggling in the classroom, but when they pick up a hammer, they become leaders on the home site. And the other kids have new respect for them back in the classroom.

The students work at pounding nails and digging in ditches to make them level for a gas line. They get their hands dirty – and love it.

And the work they are doing seems more interesting to them than picking up garbage.The students have created posters of the project and want to put a Powerpoint presentation together to show people in the juvenile justice system.

“A lot of these kids are just lost,” said Elisa Vanhoff, a teacher at the school. She said the school averages about 25 students who will stay there from 15 days to a year.

They come in at 8 a.m. and work until 12:30 p.m. Some students who are working toward their general equivalency diplomas attend the school in the afternoons.

Vanhoff said projects such as helping with the Habitat house or making Christmas stockings for kids at Shriners Hospital for Children help students discover skills they ordinarily wouldn’t find in the classroom and make them feel like they are contributing to society.

“We want people to know that they are wonderful kids,” Vanhoff said. “We’re extremely proud of these kids.”

Preston said the students are doing a wonderful job on the Habitat house.

“We’ve sure been impressed with their ability to come and stay focused,” she said. “They really have great attitudes. I’m just inspired.”