By Jessica Paulsen
Cardinal Staff
Seven Saint Mary’s students attended Earth Plaster Day on Sept. 30, when volunteers helped build a Catholic Worker House in Lake City, Minn.
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Volunteers applied an earth plaster made up of clay, sand, straw and some lime, said Holly Richard, director of the Saint Teresa Leadership and Service Institute for Women.
A Catholic Worker House is a “house of hospitality that offers services, housing and meals to people in transition, homeless people, individuals and families,” said Richard. The owners, Sara and Paul Freid, are “building this energy-efficient and friendly home...to serve that same purpose.”
The house is being built by a variety of volunteers from many locations and backgrounds. “People interested in straw bale homes, people interested in geothermal heating, people interested in the Catholic Worker Movement, [and] community members” volunteer their time and skills, said Richard.
Richard said this kind of program is good because it teaches the students good communication and group skills. They also get a chance to experience and learn how to do things they normally would not do, said Richard.
The home will be energy-efficient, and they plan to use sources of renewable energy “like solar power, wind power, composting, [and] geothermal heating.” The home is being built with resources from the land that will not make more waste and will be durable, Richard said.
Ground was broken for the home in May, and there is no projected date to have the home finished. “They are very open to how it goes because they’re victim to the weather, to the help...A lot of things are out of their control,” said Richard. She would like to take other groups there in the future to help out some more.
Richard likes this event because of its benefits. “We often talk about, ‘How do I want to improve the environment; how do I want to improve the world?’ These people are actually doing something about it and doing it in a really grand way.”
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