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Volunteers build homes in Dominican Republic
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Article RatingVolunteers from the Shippensburg area are going to the Dominican Republic at the end of the year to help build housing, and a fundraiser for the mission trip will be held Saturday.
Curtis Berry said he’s gone on three trips already. The work is being done through Work Team Partners, Inc. It will benefit a community served by Pastor David Reyes, who is affiliated with the Church of the Brethren and is from the Dominican Republic, and his wife, Jewel Sheeler Reyes, who is originally from the Newville area.
Berry is a Shippensburg area resident and also a professor of political science at Shippensburg University.
The volunteers pay for their own airfare, meal costs and other travel expenses. Berry said Kevin Sheeler, a co-leader of the group, has become adept at finding airfare bargains. This year’s trip will cost about $550 a person.
The group is scheduled to leave Dec. 30 and return Jan. 7.
Construction work
Building in the Dominican Republic isn’t the same as in North America, Berry said.
Concrete is mixed by hand on the ground, for instance, not purchased and brought in by a concrete mixer truck.
Instead of a Lowe’s or Home Depot store, there are local hardware stores. Inventories of supplies are smaller, and shopping is different. The first task is to borrow or rent a vehicle to get to purchases back to the job site. Most people who have motorized vehicles ride scooters, so trucks are harder to come by.
Groups volunteering for Work Team Partners, Inc. have completed short-term construction projects in Los Toros de la Auza over the last two years, according to a handout from Berry. These projects have included construction of two single family homes, an addition to a single family home and a two-room addition to a church sponsored preschool.
This trip, the volunteers expect to be rebuilding disabled man’s home. It has some walls of stick-and-mud construction and Berry has heard that a lot of the mud washed out of the walls during recent tropical storms.
“The Atlantic storms that go through do have a significant impact,” Berry said. Even sturdy houses with masonry walls might not have glass or Plexiglas windows.
The volunteers work with local masonry contractors, Berry said, and Work Team Partners pays the fees of the contractors.
Berry said there’s a frugal philosophy at the work site. Lumber and pieces of plywood are used over and over again to build different concrete forms or for whatever else is needed. Extra supplies aren’t discarded.
“The availability of running water and electricity is at best uneven,” Berry said. If workers plan on using power tools extensively, then “you hope someone has a small generator that you can borrow.”
Overall, said Berry, “you operate at a slower pace and with greater flexibility” under the direction of the local contractor.
Climate
Winter weather in the semi-arid, south-central part of the Dominican Republic is different than the resort area in the country’s north, Berry said.
Summers are hot compared to Pennsylvania.
“It seems like the sun is about 50 feet closer to you,” Berry said.
In winter, the high temperatures are about 85 degrees F. during the day, but at night they go down to the low 60s.
Usually the weather is bright sunshine with few clouds in the sky, Berry said.
“At night, it’s beautiful,” he said. “Often times the electricity is off at night. The sky is unbelievably clear.”
When there’s full moon, “the light is almost blinding” because there isn’t as much smog or particulate haze in the air.
Donations
The team members take a piece of carry-on luggage and a checked bag for personal supplies, plus a checked bag carrying donations for the community they are visiting. One year they took sports equipment, another year they took clothing. Berry said they don’t know what they will be asked to bring on this trip.
There will be less space for the donations, though, because weight limits have gone down as fuel prices have gone up.
The limit for each checked bag used to be 50 pounds. Now it’s 40 pounds.
Help with farming
In addition to the construction efforts, Work Team Partners has established an agricultural development fund.
Plans are under way to buy calves, which would be raised by local farmers on the fodder left over from fields following the harvest. The current practice is to burn the residual fodder.
Using the fodder to feed livestock would help farmers will increase their income, provide an additional source of protein and reduce air pollution from the burning of fields.
Work Team Partners Inc. is a tax-exempt not-for-profit charitable corporation. Any contribution beyond the purchase of meals is fully deductible under Section 501(c)(3) of the U.S. Internal Revenue Code.
