Members of the Northern Michigan Constructors (NMC) will be featured on the TV show “This Old House” after meeting up with the crew while doing volunteer work in New Orleans over winter break.
Nineteen of the organization’s members worked with Habitat for Humanity from Dec. 21 to Dec. 28. Volunteers assisted with both exterior and interior work on houses affected by Hurricane Katrina, said Jim Conlin, junior construction management major and vice president of NMC.
Coinciding with the group’s visit was filming for the PBS television show. The show features historic homes under renovation and involves carpenter Norm Abrams and host Kevin O’ Connor spending time with contractors while explaining what is happening to the home during the process.
The show was filming for the New Orleans Project, a 10-part series dedicated to rebuilding the parts of New Orleans affected by the hurricane. The crew started filming a home that NMC members were working on, said Jeremy Bubb, senior construction management major and president of NMC.
“We were told that ‘This Old House’ would be filming on site during the week we were there,” Bubb said. “It just so happened that they were filming on a home that we were siding at the time.”
During filming, which took up the majority of one day, some NMC members had the opportunity to volunteer as extras. For others, filming consisted of pretending to do work and simply remaining in the background.
“As far as work went, it was very unproductive. It took them about 20 takes to shoot the first scene,” said Conlin. “Otherwise, it was pretty fun being in the background and actually experiencing what it is like to film a show.”
The New Orleans trip was planned and run by members of NMC, an organization open to all NMU students but mostly comprised of construction management and building technology majors. The group focuses the majority of its efforts on construction-related community service projects throughout Marquette and surrounding communities.
The group put in about 640 volunteer hours in New Orleans alone and did not receive class credit, said Conlin.
New Orleans presented the group with culture shock, with many of the homes in the same condition they were in right after Katrina, Bubb said.
“Visually, the homes are in very poor condition,” he said. “There are abandoned, damaged homes everywhere.”
Most of the houses had water marks up to an average person’s neck when standing on the ground, Conlin said.
“Seeing all the devastation was a shock, and it really hit home. However, it felt great knowing we were making a difference for other people,” Conlin said. “Hearing New Orleans residents say how much they appreciated us being there was heartwarming.”
The episode of “This Old House” featuring NMC members will air Saturday, March 1, at 1:30 p.m. on WNMU-TV Channel 13.
