News Detail
All Hands on Deck for a Home in 30 Hours
Episcopal alumni and staff, and current students and parents worked side by side on an ambitious Habitat for Humanity project in Wilmington, N.C., in late October.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Cape Fear’s chapter of Habitat for Humanity, Reid Murchison ’72 along with others in the community worked towards a goal of building a house in 30 straight hours. At his 35th Reunion this summer, he mentioned the event to Head of School Charley Stillwell, and the two began to organize a trip so that current EHS students could pitch in on site.
The home build began with EHS alumni and parents working hand in hand with other Wilmington area volunteers on Thursday morning, while the EHS students were attending classes in Alexandria, over 350 miles away. Seven students jumped on vans with Charley and Sallie Stillwell and Assistant Head for Student Life Doug Dickson at the end of the class day and they arrived at the construction site ready to add youthful energy and enthusiasm in the early evening. Linda and Reid Murchison and Peryn '94 and Adair '93 Graham hosted students for a short rest in the late night hours before they returned to the site for the final shift on landscaping duty. The home was completed on time in 1,800 minutes on Friday afternoon.
“Seeing the response of the EHS community to building a home in partnership with the new homeowner, whether as donors or volunteers or both, has been a deeply moving reminder to me of how special Episcopal High School continues to be,” Murchison said.
Among the volunteers were seven current EHS students, Carter Anderson, Stella Brannon, Kyndall Donelson, Grant Gausman, Doris Li, Mei Kuo, and Kayla Murphy. Roughly a dozen alumni volunteers from in and around the Wilmington area were also on site to assist with the efforts, and many more made gifts to Cape Fear Habitat to fund the home.
“It was especially inspirational for our students to see how the dedication and commitment of Reid Murchison and our alumni group in Wilmington combined with the powerful community spirit of so many others in the Wilmington area could bring this house to life so quickly,” said Head of School Charley Stillwell, who along with wife Sallie worked side by side with the alumni and students. “We felt honored to participate in this remarkable project. I was especially proud of the effort and enthusiasm of our students.”
The students were especially grateful for an opportunity that combined service with a chance to better know EHS alumni. The hospitality of the Graham family left a powerful impression on the students.
“We stayed with Peryn, one of the first 48 in Episcopal, and I felt so grateful to be offered a chance to talk to her about her experience as a new sophomore back then,” said Mei Kuo ‘19. “Something that I took away from the trip was that anything is possible as long as people work together. I honestly never believed I would have a chance to take part in the process of constructing a house and its exterior in my whole life, let along constructing it in 30 hours or less.”
Stella Brannon ’18 was especially moved by meeting the woman who would be moving into the new home with her family. “She was incredibly thankful and had clearly worked so hard for this opportunity. At Habitat, they require people who are getting a house to put in 500 hours of work into other houses, which is called the sweat equity, and they are responsible for the mortgage on the house. Because I knew that she had to work so hard to get the house, I was even more excited to put my effort into it.”
Murchison said he enjoyed explaining, at the media kick-off for the event, why a group of alumni, parents, students, and staff “from a high school 350 miles away” would show up in such numbers for a Habitat build in Wilmington.
“One of the reasons, I said, was that several EHS alumni and friends were among the very first donors to Cape Fear Habitat for Humanity when it began 30 years ago, including the brother of an EHS Old Boy who donated a rather run-down house that we renovated to become our very first Habitat home,” Murchison said. “That renovation, almost completely by volunteers working on non-rainy Saturdays took a full 18 months to complete. I remarked at the 30th anniversary event that we had come a long way in 30 years, from renovating a home in a year-and-a-half to building one in less than a day-and-a-half.”
