NWIR Provides Sponsorship for The Women Roofers to Attend Girls Build Camp

National Women in Roofing (NWIR) announced that it provided funding for two members of the Women Roofers to attend a Girls Build camp this summer in Portland, Oregon.

The Women Roofers of Rutherford County, North Carolina are a local group of volunteers that works with the Rutherford Housing Partnership (RHP) and Habitat for Humanity to roof houses. The Girls Build program offers day camps for girls ages 8 – 14 to learn the basics of building, including carpentry, plumbing, electricity, concrete, sheet metal and much more. Both organizations recently gained national attention after being featured on separate episodes of Mike Rowe’s show, “Returning the Favor.”

“Members of the Women Roofers wanted to attend one of the camps, but being a volunteer organization, didn’t have the funding to travel across the country,” explained NWIR Chair Shari Carlozzi. “It just seemed like such a good fit with our recruitment pillar to support an initiative that promotes the trades as a viable career to young women. Our executive committee wholeheartedly agreed and we decided to provide scholarships to cover travel costs for two of the women to attend.”

The Women Roofers sent four members of their crew to the camp, with two covering their own costs and the other two using the funding provided by NWIR. “The goal of sending the two founders of the Women Roofers to one of the Girls Build camps is to share our roofing story and our roofing expertise with the young campers and their leaders,” said Nell Bovender of RHP. “The Women Roofers are contemplating replication of the idea in our rural, impoverished neck of the woods — maybe camps for both boys and girls — to encourage entry into construction trades, which are so desperately needed in this county.”

RHP is also hosting a field day for high school and college students on October 3 at the local community college where they will share what they have learned about the need for construction skills.

For more information, visit www.nationalwomeninroofing.com.