This past Friday evening, UGA students and Athens locals jammed Clayton street for the annual UGA Homecoming parade. This year’s theme was ‘Home is where the arch is’ and tasked UGA student organizations with capturing the spirit of the university.

Our UGA Habitat student organization entered year’s parade with an extravagant float packed with bulldawg spirit. Athens Habitat’s construction director Doug Carver spearheaded the construction of this year’s design which featured Uga donning Habitat protective wear while fixing up his big red doghouse between the famous hedges.

The design came to life with the help of our construction crew, the UGA Student chapter, volunteers, and our German exchange workers.

The German exchange students are here through the International Youth Christian Exchange program, which gives young people the chance to volunteer and enhance lives all around the world. Lucky for Florian, Ben, and Sam, they were placed with us right here in Athens, GA.

Will Nimmons, the president of the Habitat for Humanity UGA Student Chapter, spoke about the theme of the parade as he was helping construct the float the day before homecoming.

“The arch is a symbol of community,” he said. “What we strive to do with UGA Habitat is strengthen the bonds between the University and the greater Athens community.” While the arch is symbol of UGA here in Athens, home takes on much more meaning for Habitat. Home is about security, community, and stability. A home is a front yard to play in and a warm bed to sleep in at night.

This year, UGA Habitat took second place in the annual homecoming parade. “We came in second place and the people that got first place was the students of the College of Engineering. If you are going to lose anyone when it comes to constructing something, the College of Engineering students is probably a good way to lose,” said Bridget Sivewright. Bridget is Athens Area Habitat’s latest outreach coordinator and is responsible for connecting Habitat with its local Athens community.

We’ve won first place many years, so it’s time that we let someone else take the spotlight,” Bridget continued. “We are already thinking of ideas for next year. The next thing on our to-do list is the Parade of Lights. The community shouldn’t hold their breath, we’ll be back in action soon enough!”

We here at Habitat are proud to call Athens our home! We would like to thank all our volunteers who helped build this year’s float, everyone who came out to the parade, and all the great Athens folk who make the arch feel like home. Homecoming was a great success and we can’t wait to do it all over again next year.