REACH founder Donald Stevens poses with seven of the orphaned girls selected to live in the new homes built by REACH volunteers this summer in Les Cayes, Haiti.

Starting as early as this winter, a team of Lawrence Tech students will be working on a critical construction project at a flood-prone orphanage in Haiti. The students will build elevated walkways during the first phase and then return next spring to build housing in the poverty-stricken village.

The hands-on humanitarian project is the result of the University’s new partnership with Reconstruction Efforts Aiding Children without Homes (REACH), a nonprofit founded by Donald A. Stevens, BSAr’92. Stevens is president of two building companies, STUCC ON STEEL and SHELTER2HOME, in Winchester, VA.

Stevens founded REACH in the wake of the tsunami that struck Southeast Asia the day after Christmas in 2004, killing more than 300,000 and displacing more than five million people. An architect by education and a builder by trade, Stevens sprung into action with several friends to help rebuild Sri Lanka, which was particularly devastated by the natural disaster.

They worked closely with Habitat For Humanity-Sri Lanka to develop a partnership that would lead to building the first Habitat environmentally friendly, sustainable homes. Then, with the broader goal of helping more children, Stevens and his supporters refocused and expanded their efforts, forming REACH to aid orphan children in need worldwide.

“I’m excited about this opportunity,” said Melissa Grunow, leadership curriculum coordinator in the Office of Leadership Programs at Lawrence Tech. “I’ve sent students abroad to do other community outreach type of programs, but this is the first where they’ll be using the skills they developed in the classroom.”

Grunow’s primary role is to build awareness about the REACH program across campus and recruit six to 10 students to participate in the Haitian effort. “Students at Lawrence Tech are required to participate in a leadership curriculum, and this program will help them enhance their leadership experience,” she said.

Joseph Veryser, BSAr’76, associate dean of the College of Architecture and Design, will also be instrumental in helping to identify and recruit students, and Don Reimer, director of the Lear Entrepreneurial Program, will connect alumni with the REACH program.

In Haiti, the students will work with people in the community at the Pwoje Espwa Sud orphanage located in the impoverished village of Torbeck. In this village, more than 600 children receive shelter and care, more than 1,200 children are provided with academic and vocational educations, and 3,000 meals are prepared and served daily. The children are under the care of Father Marc Boisvert of Pwoje Espwa.

Because the village is subject to flooding, the immediate need is to build elevated walkways at the orphanage in late 2009 or early 2010. In the second phase, the team will build nine new homes for the children. The student participants will be doing their own fund-raising and other preparation before they go abroad.

“This is a perfect opportunity to help an orphaned child acquire a decent and safe place to live,” says Stevens, adding that he hopes the Haitian project will be just the beginning of a long-term commitment to REACH at his alma mater.

Stevens and his wife, Andrea, have four children and reside in Virginia. For more information on REACH, visit www.reach4children.org.