A House of Their Own

This is a really sweet story out of Belton, Texas.   University of Mary Hardin-Baylor students spent a week recently building playhouses for the children of eleven military families in an event that has become known as Cru Playhouses (the school’s team name is Crusaders).  Mike McCarthy, director of Campus Activities, said Cru Playhouses is “a way for us to teach  our students how to honor military service.” Most of the families receiving a playhouse have one parent currently deployed.

The playhouses were built Monday through Thursday, and Friday the children came to campus to help paint and decorate their playhouses. McCarthy says that when the children are involved in the decorating process  they begin to understand the playhouse is really theirs.

                    

Dawnella and Rob Carter have four young daughters ranging in age from four to nine. “We’ve been here for two years, but right after we moved here my husband was deployed,” Dawnella said. “The girls have big plans for their playhouse. They plan on landscaping around it, and they want to attract butterflies to it.They have a spot all picked out in the yard for it, so they’re really excited.”

“A lot of our students have no idea what a real military family is like,” McCarthy said. “Cru Playhouses gives us a chance to be in contact with military families and see who they really are and what type of person devotes their life to military service.”