'Christmas in April' brings off-season joy to residents

Santa and his elves made an off-season stop in West and North Philadelphia this weekend. Members of Christmas In April, an organization comprised of Wharton graduate students, spent Saturday rebuilding 21 dilapidated area homes. Over 1,500 students and volunteers participated in the community re-construction project, which culminated with Saturday's activities, according to Anna Bulkot, a second-year Wharton graduate student and public relations chairperson of Christmas In April. Students have been involved with the construction projects for the past month, with the majority of volunteers pitching in this weekend, second-year Wharton graduate student Ethan Eisner said. The students raised over $100,000 in grants and donations from local businesses and charitable foundations. Home Depot provided a budget for supplies. Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell and University men's basketball coach Fran Dunphy also attended, and the program received television coverage, Bulkot said. John Steigerwald, a second-year Wharton graduate student and the organization's fund-raising chairperson, said the program "did a very good job of house selection." Each group of students received a individual home to work with. And Eisner, a two-year veteran of the program, said that he and others spent up to 15 hours per week restoring his particular home. The volunteers, who were both University students and professional skilled laborers, made a variety of home improvements -- from repairing a leaky roof and fixing faulty wiring to painting and plastering. However, Eisner said that "99 percent of [the construction] work is done by unskilled labor." One community resident who benefited from the renovations, Mary Boston, is a 62-year-old grandmother working towards her masters of arts education. She had been without heat for the past three years, and her house was deemed too damaged for assistance from the Philadelphia Housing Development Corporation. Bulkot said that Boston, who is converting her basement into a community arts center, is "a fantastic person to help."