The Governor's Scholars Program has always been a rewarding experience for me as a journalism teacher. This was my fourth year on the faculty and one of the best. GSP celebrated its 30th anniversary this year, and to commemorate the milestone, the faculty, staff and scholars on the Bellarmine University campus built a house in partnership with Habitat for Humanity. Since the Governor’s Scholars Program encourages intellectual risk, I took one myself and created this assignment for my journalism class: Report the story of this historic occasion: Two great organizations dedicated to creating a better future for the people of Kentucky become partners in an endeavor never before tried. Never before have 360 rising high school seniors had an opportunity to work together to build a home for a deserving family. Never before has Habitat taken on the challenge of organizing a such a project and completing the build in four short weeks, a third of the usual time for a Habitat home. The project had a profound effect on everyone involved – especially the scholars who discovered a new way to change the world. We had some challenges telling this story, but my 19 scholars created something unique to them. Enjoy the journey. Jeanie Adams-Smith

A Family We Will Never Forget
Opinion
by Alyssa Brooke Young
Taylor County High School

The Governor’s Scholars Program has been providing high school seniors with amazing opportunities for 30 years.
Every year, the scholars at each of three GSP campuses perform a service project in the local community. This year, with the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program celebrating its 30th anniversary, Executive Director Aris Cedeño wanted to do something special.
    After much thought, he and his staff on the Bellarmine University campus agreed to take on a project that they had been talking about for years. They decided to partner with Habitat for Humanity and build a house for a deserving family in Louisville. But first they had to convince Habitat officials to do a build in four weeks instead of the usual 12 so the project could be completed during the five-week GSP residency program. And GSP wanted all 360 scholars at Bellarmine to have a hand-on experience in the project. Although reluctant at first, Habitat officials agreed.
    When we scholars found out that we were going to help construct a house in just four short weeks, we were all excited and eager to learn more about the project. During a convocation on the second day of the program, Aris told us exactly what we would be doing and who we would be working with. That night we were all introduced to the family. It was a family with a story that inspired each of us. A family none of us will ever forget.
    The parents, Omar Muse and Ubah Adan, each fled war-torn Somalia where their lives were in constant danger. They met and married here in the United States, and built new lives with their young family.
    They have four beautiful children: Ali, Mohammed, Hawa, Kamal, and they have another one on the way. They have been living in an apartment with their kids and Ubah’s two younger sisters, Hana and Asha.
    Omar and Ubah dreamed of owning a home where their children could grow and play in peace and safety. It seemed like an impossible dream until Habitat accepted their application for a home.
    With Habitat, that does not mean “Free House.” It means a long-term commitment to pay for the house, interest-free, and whole lot of work. Habitat requires families to put in at least 400 hours of “sweat equity,” working on their house, on other worksites or at the Habitat store. While working on their house,  site, both Omar and Ubah suffered minor injuries. On the first day that a crew of scholars began working on the house, a scholar standing on a ladder dropped his hammer, hitting Ubah in the nose and sending her to the Emergency room. Thankfully she came out with no more than a black eye and sore nose. Omar, who works full-time as a taxi driver, twisted his knee one day while working at the site.
Despite their injuries, they were constantly at the worksite, contributing greatly to the construction of their new home.  They far exceeded the required 400 hours and were an inspiration to all of us.
    I asked Omar what he and Ubah thought when they were told that 360 teenagers would be helping them construct their new home.
    “We were shocked,” Omar said. “But we knew it was a blessing.”
    Both Omar and Ubah were deeply appreciative of all the help they received. Usually, whenever a group of scholars arrived at the worksite one of the family members – Omar, Ubah or Asha –  were there working. You couldn’t count how many times they thanked us for our efforts. They were always in good spirits and happy to be building their house, despite the record-breaking heat wave that plagued us.
The family built relationships with the scholars as they worked together. The day I went to the site, one of my friends, Lauren Dale, of Shelby County High School, worked with Asha during our four-hour work shift. They quickly formed a friendship, and. Lauren said she was inspired by Asha’s determination to help out her family.
As we departed, I watched Lauren and Asha hug each other. I couldn’t help but smile, realizing not only the impact that we were having on the family, but also the impact the family was having on us.
 “Being a part of a project like that was a blessing,” said scholar Niko Carter, of Lloyd Memorial High School in Erlanger. “It meant a lot to me to be able to do something like that for someone.”

In the Laughter of Children, Hope
By Katie Woosley
Christian Academy of Louisville

Hawa is a charmer. She teases her brothers incessantly and then squeezes them with her compassionate hugs.
Surrounded by students from Kentucky’s Governor’s Scholars Program Hawa knows no stranger, slamming her little body into the arms of unsuspecting scholars. The three-year-old steals the hearts of all around her.
Ali and Mohammed, the two oldest boys at eight and seven years old, are inseparable. At the Fourth of July carnival hosted by the GSP at Bellarmine University, the boys rotated from prize-winning games to snow-cones and s’mores while spouting off witty comments to scholars nearby, leaving satisfied by their accomplishment of making someone laugh.
Two-year-old Kamal is shy, but always on the move. During the Fourth of July carnival, wobbled from one activity to the next as fast as his little legs could take him. Ubah, his mother, followed close behind. Kamal enjoys his freedom to run, but his sprints usually end in the embrace of a family member.
Sharon Ash, the family’s advocate at Habitat for Humanity, describes Mohammed and Ali as “alert, curious, bright, and energetic.”  She claims Hawa is the family’s “little princess.”
According to Ubah, little Kamal has “no fear and doesn’t listen.”
For the 360 rising high school seniors who were attending a five-week residency at Bellarmine with the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program, these four kids brought home a lesson more significant perhaps than anything they would learn in the classroom. For all their energy and joy, these four kids have never experienced the comfort and security of a home that they can call their own.
Until now. This year, the GSP partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build a house for Omar Muse, his wife Ubah Adan and these four kids who were such a hit at the Fourth of July festival. Every Governor’s Scholar at Bellarmine went to the Habitat worksite on Louisville’s West End, put on a hard hat and got to work. It’s called public service, but hanging out with those kids and their happy, hard-working parents made it personal.
The experience of building the house, alongside Omar and Ubah and the Habitat volunteers, was a life-changer. It was a blessing not only for the family, but for the scholars too.
“My passion in life,” said Aris Cedeño, the Executive Director of the Kentucky Governor’s Scholars Program, “is to work in the service of homeless.”

The Muse family crowds under an umbrella during the dedication.

Aris had two requirements for the potential Habitat family: There had to be females in the household, since 60 percent of the Bellarmine scholars were female, and it had to be a “family with children.”
Habitat for Humanity then proposed the Muse family. In addition to their four children, Omar and Ubah are awaiting the birth of their fifth child. And Ubah’s two sisters, the teen-aged Asha and her youngest sister Hana, will also be living with them in their new four-bedroom home.
Hana, a pretty, soft-spoken 12-year-old, said it’s “fun to live with my sister. I think of her more like a mom,” Hana, who has been living with Ubah since 2010, is excited to finally move out of an apartment into her home. She has moved five or six times since 2006. In this new home she will have a bigger room which she will share with Hawa. She doesn’t mind sharing, though, because they get to have bunk beds. Hana dreams about swinging and gardening in her backyard. She wants to grow a tomato and cucumber garden.
Ubah said she sees a difference in the children as they plan how they will “own” the house, “planning their own things” and “their own room.”
Throughout the building process, Omar and Ubah took the children to the worksite every night so they could view the day’s progress.
Now the children will be allowed to “stay at the same school” with the “same friends,” a luxury the parents could not guarantee while living in apartments.
And now, proclaimed Ubah, who escaped a life of constant fear in war-torn Somalia, “They feel free.”

New Life for an Old Neighborhood
By Susan Bailey
Breckinridge County High School

George and Wanda Allen have been sitting on their porch on a beat up recliner watching the Habitat for Humanity house come together since early June
A quite a show it has been. Shortly after the foundation was laid, groups of young people have been coming to the worksite, usually in two shifts of about 20 people a day. They have stood quietly at attention – many with that “deer in the headlights” look on their faces – while Habitat’s Team Leader George Sgro gave them safety instructions and their marching orders.
Then the fun began. The shrill song of the circular saw, and the rat-a-tat-tat-tat of hammers on nails filled the air while a constant parade of people hauled studs, trusses and plywood sheets, pounding them into place, caulking and painting.
All the while, their clothes darkened with sweat and began to take on a reddish tint from the dust that filled the air.
For George and Wanda, it was not only fun, but it was a sign of hope for their neighborhood on the West End of Louisville.
“This is an old neighborhood, and it is most inspiring to see the new life being brought up and changing the neighborhood for the better,” said George as he and Wanda watched the dedication ceremony after the house was completed in just four weeks – a record build for Habitat.
George was a retired union painter and was a contractor for seven years, so he watched with admiration at the quick build from the ground up. His home had once been a drug house and he and Wanda see great hope in this new house and the young family that is moving in.
The 350 young people at the dedication ceremony were rising high-school seniors from across Kentucky who worked on the house as part of a five-week and academic and leadership residency with the Governor’s Scholars Program. The leadership of GSP proposed a partnership with Habitat for Humanity to build the house for Omar Muse and Ubah Adan and their young family.
The neighborhood has become so crime-ridden it has earned the nickname “Little Chicago.” In 2005, the West End had almost 50 percent of the total murders in Jefferson County. Just a few months ago several shootings broke out leaving three people dead and three others hospitalized.
However, Habitat and the GSP see this project and other like it and a way of changing the neighborhood.

Wanda and George Allen watch the dedication ceremony from their porch.

    “We build where there is opportunity and the potential here is incredible” said Habitat’s Chuck Sgro, team leader at this and many other home sites in the area. The Muse family was carefully selected by Habitat as a family that can truly make a difference.
Omar said he is not worried about any danger in the neighborhood and has met some very welcoming neighbors, including the George and Wanda, who live right across the street.
Aris Cedeño, the executive director of GSP, worked hard to build this partnership with Habitat. He sees the project as a way of giving his scholars a firsthand look at how to create change in a community.
“It is important to help this community,” he said, “because deep down every community has gold. It’s our job to bring it out.”

Once a Scholar Always a Scholar
By Zach Childers
Hopkinsville High School

Carin Veech remembers well the days she spent with Kentucky’s Governor’s Scholars Program, which was created in 1983 to take talented high school students and build them into the future leaders of Kentucky.
“It has had a profound effect on my life,” Carin said. “It was the first time in my life where achievement was celebrated by everyone around me, and we were encouraged to dream bigger dreams.”
Carin attended GSP at Western Kentucky University in 1985, not long after the program began inviting the state’s “best and brightest” rising seniors for a college campus residency that focused on academic and leadership skills.
“It was a very powerful experience,” she said. “As the program was in its infancy, they were just defining what they wanted it to be and they were asking for, and listening to, the input from the scholars as to what they wanted their experience to be.”
Now Volunteer Coordinator Carin Veech of Habitat for Humanity Metro Louisville is deeply involved in that organization’s vital mission of changing lives and rebuilding communities. Still she finds herself in constant touch with her GSP roots.
“I became part of a larger community of scholars. I have met former scholars with startling regularity throughout my life, both socially and professionally.”
This year was truly special as the Governor’s Scholars Program, based at Bellarmine University for five week, formed a partnership with Habitat to build a home on Louisville’s West Side. The GSP Foundation would provide seed money and 360 scholars would provide the muscle and sweat.
For Carin, two of the great influences of her life were coming together in one place. Habit compressed their usual timetable for a build from 12 weeks to four so the scholars could see their work from bare foundation to finished house. In her job, Carin is responsible for matching up the many volunteers with the right worksites at the right times.

Former GSP Scholar, Carin Veech, at the Habitat site.

“As the Volunteer Coordinator, it seemed like an amazing challenge – to build a home in one third the usual time and with teenagers,” she said. As part of her job Carin had to decide which Habitat volunteers would be best suited for working with 360 high school kids. This presented a challenge and she recalled how she made the decision:
“We looked for a team that had enough members to provide leaders, strong organizational skills and a desire to take on a project we had never tried before,”
Chuck Sgro, who was chosen as Team Leader for the project, worked closely with Carin.
 “She does a tremendous job, she is outgoing, a great communicator, and knows how to say thank you,” he said. “She is very good at making people feel good about what they do.”
Now that the project is finished Carin spoke about how proud she was of the scholars.
“I am amazed but not surprised at the success of the program. I would love to see the momentum continue and for there to be a GSP alumni house each year,” she said.”
 “GSP was the first extended period of time I had ever spent away from home, the first time I'd ever had a roommate, the first time I'd ever been around so many interesting and new people in my life.
“Watching this class of scholars experience the same things has been very exciting.”

The Decent Thing to Do
By Adam Plumley
Paintsville High School

“I’m ‘Deadly’ Dexter,” he said, introducing himself to the rest of the guys in the circle. They were playing the “name game” on the first day of the Governor’s Scholars Program, using a descriptive adjective to learn each other’s names in their dormitory hall at Bellarmine University.
The game was suggested by their resident advisor. No one expected “deadly” to come out of someone’s mouth on the first day of a five-week academic and leadership residency funded by the state of Kentucky.
“It was the only ‘D’ word I could think of,” Dexter explained later. “Ya think I really wanted to pick ‘deadly’? If I could go back, I would pick ‘dexterous.’”
Whatever. Of course everyone in the group thought Dexter’s ego was out of control.
    There was a reason that Dexter A. Smith, a rising senior at Lloyd Memorial High School in Erlanger, was selected for the Governor’s Scholars Program, a summer residential program originated in 1983 “for outstanding high school students in Kentucky who are rising seniors,” according to the GSP official website. He was one of 360 students staying at Bellarmine in a program designed to develop them intellectually, socially, and emotionally and prepare them for leadership positions.
Community service, like caring for the poverty stricken and homeless, has always been a large part of the program, but this year brought the biggest service project ever as GSP partnered with Habitat Humanity to allow the scholars to build a home for a deserving family in Louisville. The project would take four weeks and every scholar and every teacher in the program would take part.
It was huge: 360 Kentucky teenagers, including our “Deadly” Dexter, were going haul the wood, hammer the nails, fit the siding, caulk and paint alongside the experienced volunteers from Habitat. Every scholar put in at least a half-day shift of sweat and tears during the build. They all walked away proud of what they had done.
Dexter was proud too. But one shift was not enough for him.
“I wanted to work on the house again,” said Dexter. “I wanted to help out that family the most that I could.”
Dexter was awed by the family, by the work the young parents put in to create their homestead, a haven of safety and happiness for their children.
 “I never knew they had to buy the stuff to build the house,” he said. “They, like, have to actually earn the house for themselves. I like that I actually got to help them reach their goal because they really did deserve it.”
After his first tour of duty at the worksite, Dexter knew he had to go again, even though he also knew he wasn’t God’s gift to homebuilding.

Dexter A. Smith

“I’m a strong, strapping young man,” he said, “and it took me six times to hammer in one nail, and then Chuck comes over and gets it done with two shots. Boom! Boom!” Chuck Sgro, the worksite Team Leader for Habitat, was both carpentry instructor and father figure to the scholars. Working with Chuck helped Dexter to realize his passion for building and community service.
“As soon as I turn 18, I’m going to call Habitat and schedule to volunteer for them in the Cincinnati area,” Dexter said.
For now, though, he wanted to get back to that worksite again. He knew that wouldn’t be easy. The daily schedule of vans from Bellarmine to the worksite was not something that could easily be altered. To get back out there, Dexter would have to talk to Dr. Aristófanes Cedeño, the Executive Director and Academic Dean of the Governor’s Scholars Program. A meeting with Aris is no small matter. From Day One, in his first speech to the scholars, he made it clear that the very strict rules of behavior at GSP are absolute and any violation would have serious consequences. Oh, and Aris was also the enforcer.
“I was nervous because I heard he likes girls better than guys,” Dexter joked. “Nah, but really, I wasn’t nervous because I wanted to go so bad. I had to ask him.”
Aris granted him permission, if Dexter’s schedule permitted.
“He expressed so much passion for the work that his four hours didn’t seem enough to him,” said Aris. “I told Dexter that if there was a time when not much was going on and he wasn’t missing classes, that he could possibly go again.”
As it turned out, Dexter didn’t make it back to the worksite until the dedication ceremony on July 14. Conflicting field trip schedules kept him away, but he earned points with his hall buddies.
“Deadly” Dexter was all but forgotten, replaced by “Decisive Dexter” who saw a need and was determined to do everything he could to help. And “Daring” Dexter who had the courage to march into Aris’s office and request another trip to the worksite.
As for himself, Dexter wouldn’t make a fuss over it.
“Working at the house was an awesome experience,” he said, “so I just asked if I could go again.”
So how about “Decent” Dexter?

GSP, Habitat Build a Future Together
By Carly Raymer
Edmonson County High School

Dust is flying, everyone is coughing, and temperatures are over 100 degrees.
McKenzi Belt, a rising senior at Paducah Tilghman High School, wipes the sweat off her forehead and smiles. She and 17 other high school students are hard at work building a house with volunteers from Habitat for Humanity.
Today they are bending metal for the roofing and installing wall insulation. Despite the uncomfortable conditions – a record-breaking heat wave baked the worksite on Louisville’s West End – positive attitudes reign. They were building a house for a deserving family.
McKenzi sums up her experience as “extremely rewarding and worthwhile.”
That is exactly the response that officials from the Governor’s Scholars Program were looking for when they decided to pursue a partnership with Habitat for Humanity. This year 360 scholars who were selected for a five-week residential program at Bellarmine University were also able to take part in a Habitat build.
GSP Executive Director Aristófanes Cedeño said he wanted to accomplish three goals by working on a Habitat house: To have all scholars working as a community on one public service project; to open the scholars’ eyes to a situation that can be used in the future; and to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Governor’s Scholars Program with something great.
For the past six years, the faculty and staff of GSP have been talking about a partnership with Habitat for Humanity. About a year ago, they began to pursue it in earnest, opening discussions with Habitat.
During the planning sessions, GSP coordinators sensed some reluctance among the Habitat representatives. There were questions about the plan to complete a house in just four weeks instead of the usual Habitat timetable of 12 weeks. And Habitat prefers volunteers to be over 18 years of age and the scholars were 16 to 17. And finally, having 360 inexperienced volunteers working on one house presented organizational and safety issues.

McKenzi Belt and Julie Spaulding

Aris Cedeño insisted that the scholars were selected for the program because they had solid records not only in academics but in extracurricular and community activities.
“Over 20 years the scholars never change in the mind,” Aris said.
Habitat was convinced, and this unique partnership was in place on June 17, when the scholars arrived at Bellarmine. During the week before, GSP staff helped assemble wall sections off-site while Habitat prepped the worksite and poured the foundation.
When the first shift of about 20 scholars arrived at the site in GSP vans, Habitat Team Leader Chuck Sgro was waiting for them with hardhats, a safety lecture and detailed instructions for the day’s work. Chuck was a born leader, full of knowledge, good humor, and patience.
“My middle name is Job,” he said.
In the end, the house was built on time and up to Habitat’s quality standards. All the scholars were present at a dedication ceremony when the house was presented to Omar Muse and Ubah Adan, the hardworking parents of a young and growing family. Ubah is pregnant with their fifth child.
For scholar Alyssa Young, of Taylor County High School, it was an unforgettable moment.
“GSP has been a great experience,” she said, “to try new things, make friends and serve others.”
In the end, Chuck Sgro called this build, with 2,020 hours of work, 18 full workdays, and 360 teenagers on the worksite, “The biggest in Louisville, ever, ever, ever.”
So how did he manage to complete the house in just four weeks – a record time for Habitat – with hundreds of inexperienced scholars under foot?
“I have no idea,” he said with a smile.