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Wednesday, March 21, 2018 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Students help raise
a house in Sisters
There seems to be some-
thing about Sisters that draws
students from Minnesota for
Collegiate Challenge Week.
This year’s visiting group
hailed from Sage Academy
in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota.
They are the seventh group
from Minnesota to come to
Sisters and help the local
Habitat, Marie Clasen,
Habitat’s Family Services
Manager said. They worked
on Becky Conner’s future
home and helped with con-
crete footings for Bear and
Mary Gray’s home.
After four days of the
youth filling trenches
and sinkholes, helping to
install siding and assist-
ing to pour concrete foot-
ings, Construction Manager
Darleene Snider couldn’t
have been more appreciative
of their hard work.
“I was extremely and
pleasantly surprised. You
guys accomplished a lot. It
was an absolutely awesome
week,” she told the students
on their last day.
The youth were in
Sisters as part of Habitat
for Humanity’s Collegiate
Challenge Program. High
school and college students
around the nation spend
their spring break helping
build homes alongside future
Habitat homebuyers.
Two of the students
involved in the service week
were exchange students;
Giorgio Angelo Runtuwene
is from Indonesia and Ricky
Clarot from Italy. They had
fun helping out and getting
asked a lot of questions from
Habitat volunteers.
Over the course of the
four days, the questions went
both ways as the students
learned about construction.
“I’ve learned that blueprints
aren’t blue,” Junior Haley
Morgan said laughing while
waiting for the concrete truck
to arrive. But in all serious-
ness, she and fellow class-
mate Mercedes Magill talked
about how much it meant
to them to work as a team
and get to know the Habitat
families and the construction
volunteers.
“Dennis is great! He’s my
new grandfather,” Magill
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PHOTO BY JERRY BALDOCK
A work crew from Sage Academy in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota, came to Sisters to help build a home.
said about long-time volun-
teer Dennis Mills, who was
teaching the kids how to lay
out and assemble a stone
patio. Another highlight for
Magill was seeing Snider run
the job site. “It’s great to see
a woman in charge,” she said
of Snider, who has been con-
struction manager for three
years. Magill was grateful for
the opportunity to learn new
skills; skills, she said, that
many young women are not
given the chance to learn.
Social Studies teacher
Kelly Crampton said one
of the reasons they picked
Sisters was because many
of the kids had studied the
Oregon Trail history in her
class. During their time off,
the group hiked Peterson
Ridge Trail, the Metolius
River Trail and visited
Sahalie and Koosah Falls.
Hosting the students is
a community effort, Clasen
said. They slept at Shepherd
of the Hills Lutheran Church,
were able to take showers
at Sisters Athletic Club, an
anonymous donor donated
$100 for the group to have
dinner, Habitat volunteers
provided lunch each day, and
they were gifted tickets to see
Darlingside at the Sisters Folk
Festival winter concert. The
students were very grateful
for the generosity, and several
talked about coming back to
stay.
“You can come back any-
time,” volunteer John Milne
told the kids as the volun-
teers and students said their
goodbyes.
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3 Sister s and Cook
For Ed Cook, there are three aspects of any
job: the agreement, the presentation of the work
and the handshake. And for him, the handshake is
everything. His handshake is his integrity and your
guarantee of a job well done, for the price agreed
upon and the schedule determined.
The word is getting out about 3 Sisters and
Cook Contracting — about that high level of
integrity, about reliability and attention to detail.
That’s an ethic that Cook’s father instilled in
him from an early age, and one that carried him
through a long and distinguished career in building
restoration in Virginia. Now that he’s in Sisters, Ed
is handling modest-sized projects from remodels
to painting that he can handle himself.
He never cuts corners, and he believes the best
value in the long run is in quality. He’ll back that
up with hat he values most: his handshake.