The house on Littleton Avenue will soon be home to a lucky family in Newark.

The University Hospital Department of Orthopedics is building a house for Habitat for Humanity - from the foundation to the roof, and everything in between.

It may take a village to raise a child, but all it takes is a group of orthopedists to raise a roof. And that’s just what’s happening at 228 Littleton Avenue in Newark. The University Hospital Department of Orthopedics is building a house for Habitat for Humanity – from the foundation to the roof, and everything in between.

“It’s actually a lot more than just orthopedists,” says Department Chairman Fred Behrens, MD. “We’ve got secretaries, residents, medical students, physicians, nurses, lab and radiology staff members and everyone brings their family members and friends. It’s a very good group.”

Dr. Fred Behrens with the new home owner Simone Gabriel and her daughters.

According to Behrens, the department was looking for a project that would enable them to help the community and to get involved. “We all work in this city,” he says, “ and we have a lot of interaction with the people and we wondered, ‘what can we do to lend a hand?’”

The chairman says they considered a few projects, but this one was most appealing. “We wanted something that a large number of people in the department could get involved with,” he explains.

Habitat for Humanity, a nonprofit organization, aims to eliminate substandard housing and homelessness by providing decent shelter to those who need it. Since 1976, they have built more than 150,000 homes around the world, 60,000 of them in the United States. Homes are built through volunteer labor, with donations of money and materials. They are sold to families at no profit, and financed with no interest loans.

	Members of the Habitat for Humanity crew work with staff from the Department of Orthopaedics to hang drywall.

The department’s volunteers started out helping on existing Habitat projects and found it worked well. The projects were done on Saturdays which helped with the group’s busy schedule. “This was perfect because it doesn’t matter what you do at work, who you report to or how the department is structured. When we get out there and start sheet-rocking, we’re all equals,” Behrens says. “And, the orthopedists in the bunch, we’re always interested in all matters engineering. You know, you cut wood, you cut bones, it’s not that different.”

To build a house of “their own,” the Department had to become a sponsor and to commit to raising $80,000. “We’re almost there,” says Behrens. “We are in the high 50’s now and we could have probably gotten the money overnight but we decided not to accept outside money – things like drug company funding or implant company monies. We all agreed that this was our department’s project and we should raise the money the hard way. Getting it gifted to you by a big company would have made it too easy,” he says.

Meanwhile, the house construction began in June, with different staff members pitching in every Saturday since. “We’re going to start dry-walling this weekend,” says Behrens. “We hope to finish up before the end of the year.”

Laying the flooring, staff of the Department of Orthopaedics work hand in hand with Habitat for Humanity.

For the Department of Orthopaedics, knowing they were helping the community was very rewarding, but when they got to meet the family who will be living in the house, it added another dimension to the project. “We met the family and they were very gracious. Part of the Habitat program is that they join in the building. It’s very nice to see the person who will be living in this house, hammering alongside you. You know they will take care of this building, on the thing that you worked so hard on, because they too are working hard.”

If you are interested in making a contribution to the Department of Orthopaedics project, contact Abby Schwalb at (973) 972-3860.