Habitat for Humanity gets an Olympic boost

MAGNA — Olympians took some time out from training and perfecting their sport Saturday to pull weeds and do landscaping work.

Seventeen Olympians participated in the third national Olympian and Paralympian Build Day for Habitat for Humanity, the first held in Utah.

One soon-to-be-homeowner, Bernadette Deschine, was working alongside the gold, silver and bronze medalists.

Deschine didn't have an easy childhood. When she was 2 years old, her mother died, and a year later her father abandoned his family. Deschine then lived with extended family. In high school, she moved from New Mexico to Salt Lake City to live with her sister.

Now a single mother with an 18-year-old son on his way to the University of Utah, Deschine is spending her extra Saturdays working on Habitat for Humanity building sites as part of the required 200 hours of labor to earn a home in the program.

"I think it's a great program," Deschine said. "It gives us an opportunity to advance. I'm happy there are programs out there for people like us."

Olympians Alyson Dudek and Katherine Reutter, who train in Utah, were helping out at Humanity Cove. Both are teammates on the U.S. Speed Skating Team, and each took home a medal from the 2010 Vancouver Games. Dudek, who is from Wisconsin, and Reutter, who is from Illinois, expressed the importance of feeling like a part of a community.

"It's really important to me to feel like where I train is home," Reutter said.

For the Olympians, the opportunity to volunteer was more than a coincidence.

The Olympian and Paralympian Build Day is part of the U.S. Olympic Committee's attempt to give back to the communities that support their athletes.

"We're motivated to get a family into the houses and to help them start a new life," Dudek said.

e-mail: gbarker@desnews.com