Visions Service Adventures Volunteers Build Houses for Locals

Nine high school students have traveled around the world to help out the people of south Mississippi’s low income areas.

A family in north Gulfport’s Turkey Creek community will soon have a brand new home thanks to a group of high school students from a boarding school in New York. Martin Ma, a sophomore at Ross School, says, "We’ve been working on this house for several days and it’s really interesting. We learned a lot of knowledge about how to use those tools and how the house is made and how to handle drywall."

Sarah Stewart, a junior at Ross School, says, "I’ve learned a lot of useful carpentry skills and I’ve also learned teamwork and cooperation and what it takes to build a house."

It’s all a part of Visions Service Adventures, a volunteer organization that’s been working with and in the Turkey Creek community since Hurricane Katrina. Each year, they partner with Ross School of New York to make these service trips possible. Polin Yang, a senior at Ross School, says, "I feel really great about helping others because one of the biggest reasons I attended this trip was to help others."

The students traded in their school books for power tools for a good cause, and they also surrendered their cell phones for the duration of the trip. Ma also says, "So many people are using their phone every single day. Since we don’t get our phones, we can focus on our work."

In their rare moments of down time, these students, who are from all over the world, have actually been getting a unique geography lesson as they venture out and explore south Mississippi. Vingqi Zhao, a junior at Ross School, says, "Teachers and the group leaders took us to go hiking. We hiked along the Turkey Creek and we went south all the way to the Gulf of Mexico."

The students will be on the Coast until March 11th, and they’ve certainly got their hands full. Rose Johnson, Executive Director of North Gulfport Community Land Trust, says, "The kids are very busy. They’re working in the Turkey Creek community, as a matter of fact they’re building a handicap ramp for one of the residents of the Turkey Creek community, and once they finish that, they will be moving on to Pascagoula with the Audubon Society."

Any work left unfinished after the students leave next Wednesday will be picked up by another Visions group in June.