In an effort to help rebuild areas of the Tuscaloosa community that were heavily impacted by last year’s tornadoes, the University of Alabama recently partnered with Habitat for Humanity’s Tuscaloosa branch. The idea for Bama Blitz, a project that aims to raise $75,000 by April 27 in order to rebuild the home of a Tuscaloosa family, resulted from the collaboration.
Jared Patterson, volunteer and partnership director for Habitat, said he helped to construct the idea for Bama Blitz with UA students in mind.
“It is difficult sometimes for students to come out on our jobsites due to classes, work and student organization responsibilities,” Patterson said. “This program is designed not to interfere with the daily student grind, but still allow them to participate.
“We have had a strong relationship with the community service center at UA since we began doing recovery work last year. We knew it would be a perfect partnership having them involved with us. This program has been in the works for about a month now, and we were able to launch last Monday.”
The easiest way for students to become involved with the project is to simply make a donation, either by visiting Habitat’s website at www.habitattuscaloosa.org/BamaBlitz or by mailing a check to Habitat’s office.
Although reaching $75,000 is the primary goal of Bama Blitz, both Patterson and Lisa Bochey, assistant director of Hunger and Homelessness for the UA Community Service Center, hope for students to take a more active role in spreading the message.
“The donation aspect of this project is the main focus,” Patterson said. “But what is just as important and possibly even more important is that students help create awareness among the rest of the student body, friends, family, alumni, etc. A big way that students can help is by helping coordinate fundraising opportunities.”
In addition to making donations, Bochey said Bama Blitz is asking for the ongoing support from the student body.
“We would like students to help spread the word any way they can in order to make this initiative a growing success,” Bochey said. “This can be something small, such as liking Bama Blitz on Facebook, or something large, such as a student organization spearheading a letter writing campaign or hosting a fundraiser cookout. Anything to help spread the word and encourage involvement and donations will help our program grow.”
After reaching the initial goal of building one home, Bama Blitz workers plan to continue raising funds to rebuild as many of the 7,000 homes that were destroyed last year as possible. Wahnee Sherman, director of the UA Community Service Center, suggests a reliance on UA students for the project to be successful.
“There is no limit to that number of homes. As long as our campus community can be on board with this and wants to be involved, we can continue,” Sherman said. “There were many issues with substandard housing in Tuscaloosa prior to the tornado. We want students to continue to be engaged in the process of making sure that all families in Tuscaloosa have good housing options.”
