Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Children learn home is where the heart is at fundraiser

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Laurie DeWitt⁄The Gazette
(From left) Connor Worth, 7, of Gaithersburg, Timothy Westcott, 5, of Germantown, and Grace Worth, 5, of Gaithersburg, try to finish a Lego house in less than one hour during Sunday’s Lego Blitz Build, held at Montgomery mall in Bethesda. The event, which challenged participants aged 5-18 to create a Lego house in less than one hour, was a fundraiser for Montgomery County Habitat for Humanity.
As Grace Worth stared at a table covered with Legos, she explained succinctly the art of building.

‘‘A foundation is easy, you just build a square,” said the 5-year-old Gaithersburg resident. ‘‘Then you connect all the little squares together to make a house.”

If only building a real home could be so easy.

Worth, along with more than 80 other Lego fanatics, took part in the second annual Lego Blitz Build, sponsored by the Montgomery County chapter of Habitat for Humanity. The event, which cost $20 per participant, is a fundraiser for the home-building group.

The event raised $4,000 in participation fees this year, up from $1,500 last year, according to Diane Weslowski, who works in resource development for Habitat. The money will go toward building a new Habitat home in Burtonsville. Last year the event had 50 participants. In the last two years, the event has raised $13,000 through fees and sponsorships.

The rules for the 30-plus teams were simple: One hour. Four walls and roof. Go.

Each team was given a bag with 400 assorted Lego pieces, with the goal of building a house. Participants ranged in age from 5 to 18 and came from as far as Calvert and Howard counties to the event at Montgomery mall in Bethesda. Some of the two- and three-person teams struggled to create doors and windows, while others built turrets and garages.

The important thing to remember, though, was that it wasn’t a competition.

‘‘This isn’t about competing, it’s about teaching young people that they can make a difference,” Weslowski said. ‘‘Hopefully this event helps them understand the need for housing, even in Montgomery County.”

The houses weren’t judged for prizes, but each participant received a certificate.

Statistics about homelessness in the country lined the walls — 95 million people in the United States have housing problems — and the youngsters recognized the real reason they were there.

‘‘Even though we’re one of the richest counties, there is still poverty and people need to know about it to help fix it,” said Kim Foecke, 15, of Damascus, while trying to fashion a pile of pieces into a wall.

In less than one hour, a myriad of multicolored mosaics sprang up, some rudimentary in nature, others with color-coordinated patterns and designs. Some participants never even used Legos before, while others, like the 10 participants from Good Hope Union United Methodist Church in Silver Spring, had been training for weeks.

Three practice sessions were held at the church in recent weeks, according to Alyssa Sneed, 10, of Laurel, and the practice paid off. Sneed and her two teammates finished a soaring house, complete with horseback riders and lookout towers, in less than 45 minutes.

‘‘The practice helped a little bit,” Sneed said. ‘‘But we really just wanted to have fun.”

The event began last year as a way to incorporate students, who are still too young to help build real homes, into the efforts of Habitat for Humanity. According to John Paukstis, executive director for the Montgomery County division, events like the Lego Blitz Build help recruit young home builders.

‘‘What we find is that students who help in middle school with fundraisers then join building crews in college,” he said. ‘‘This is a way they can make a contribution now.”

The Blitz Build was the culmination of Habitat’s ‘‘Act! Speak! Build!” Week, which is dedicated to inform people about Habitat’s mission. Other events during the week included the paper house campaign, where students made 3-D paper houses to represent the 225,000 houses built by Habitat worldwide, and a cookie campaign, where students baked cookies in the shapes of tools and houses.

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