RAISE THE ROOF: In a spring break from the norm, students team up with Habitat to build home for Walton resident (PHOTOS)

University of Pittsburgh-Greensburg student senior Kate Sadler decided to skip the bikinis and beach parties this year and spend her spring break sporting a hardhat and tool belt.

“Today I have helped wrap the house and put up some of the interior walls,” Sadler told The Sun.

To view more photos from the construction site, click here.

Twenty students from the college and University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown joined together with the Habitat for Humanity of Walton County to build a home for a longtime employee of Sandestin’s Burnt Pine Golf Course and his grandchildren.

Sandestin homeowners raised 100 percent of the funds needed to build the home on Howell Avenue in Defuniak Springs, and a few even volunteered their time to help with the construction.

While most spring breakers were still sleeping off the night before, the UPITT group arrived at the construction site at 8 a.m. Monday morning to begin work on the weeklong construction project.

When The Sun caught up with the crew on Tuesday afternoon, the site had grown from a gray slab of concrete to the skeleton of home in only one day.

“I am known as the ‘nail gun girl,’ ” Sadler said. “Wherever they need nails, they yell, ‘I need help nail gun girl.’ ”

Although Sadler is in her senior year of college, this is the first year she has ever gone on a spring break trip.

“I decided I wanted to do something as opposed to just sitting around,” she said. “And I wanted to give back instead of being selfish and only thinking of me.”

The UPITT group has been sending students to Walton County to build houses for eight consecutive years and is currently working on the 22nd house constructed by Habitat for Humanity.

University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown junior Jim Doman has been on several build trips before.

“I like being able to help those who are less fortunate,” Doman said. “And I get to use my construction skills.”

The electrical engineering student likes working with a smaller group on a single house as opposed to his previous trips where students would work in large numbers to build multiple houses.

The recipient of the donated home and his grandson even came out Monday to assist the students.

“He jumped right in and started working,” said Dorman. “He really appreciated what we were doing and it was nice being able to work alongside him.”

Bryan Valentine, the director of student life for the University of Pittsburgh-Johnstown, hand picks the students who he brings along for the construction trip.

“These are the kids that want to be here to work,” Valentine said. “If I told them we were only going to work half a day tomorrow, they would be upset because there is still so much to do.”

As opposed to most spring break trips, Valentine believes these students will go home with a sense of accomplishment as opposed to feelings of “regret and embarrassment.”

For Sadler, even though she didn’t get to hang out on the beaches for her spring break, the overall experience has been extremely rewarding.

“I would definitely come back here for a vacation,” she said.