By Matt Wake (Contact / Staff Bio)
March 28, 2008 - 12:04 a.m. EST

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Michael Nerbun, left, works the saw during a Home Works of America project. Begun in 1996, Home Works provides home repairs to the needy. Nerbun founded a Clemson University branch of Home Works earlier this year. Photo courtesy of Home Works

SENECA — At 8 a.m. tomorrow, Clemson University student Michael Nerbun will already be up, literally. Nerbun and around 30 other volunteers are repairing the roof of an elderly Seneca woman’s home.

A 19-year-old freshman from Columbia, Nerbun organized the assistance via Home Works of America. The nonprofit organization provides home repairs to the needy.

Begun in 1996, Home Works maintains operations in South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Louisiana.

But until Nerbun’s efforts in early 2008, Home Works didn’t have a branch in Clemson. He first became active with the charity while attending Cardinal Newman High School in Columbia. He helped repair poverty-stricken homes in the Columbia area. A summer session at a Home Works project on Johns Island, near Charleston, followed.

“It’s really nice to be able to help people out,” Nerbun said. “You get to see a lot of the problems they have, and the conditions they live in are pretty awful. This is an opportunity to help them.”

Nerbun’s experience with Home Works even informed his choice of major at Clemson: civil engineering.

Earlier this year, Nerbun undertook his first Home Works project in the Upstate, albeit a small one. He and friend Cliff Moore, a Columbia attorney, installed a new kitchen counter and fixed a faucet for Seneca resident Sue Carol Thompson. Before the two-man job, Thompson, who Nerbun estimates to be in her 70s, didn’t have running water in her kitchen.

“When we went to her originally we weren’t sure we were coming back,” Nerbun said. “But when we did return, she told us she had prayed for us to come back. That was the impact on her: that we were willing to help.”

On Saturday morning, Nerbun and the other student volunteers will convene at the Campbell Drive home of Jonell Campbell. In addition to repairing her 30-year-old roof, the volunteers will install a new water heater, washer and dryer and flooring. They’ll replace cracked windowpanes. Campbell also asked for a simpler augmentation.

“She asked us to put weather stripping on the front door because in the summer, lizards crawl under the front door and scare her,” Nerbun said.

Home Works is still looking for an addition $500-$600 to complete the Campbell project.

“She doesn’t have the money to buy heating oil for her furnace, and in the winter time she can’t heat her house,” Nerbun said. “We’re still working on that.”

To help flesh out a Clemson Home Works, Nerbun turned to the United Way. The nonprofit giant helped him find in-need individuals. In addition, the United Way assisted Nerbun in obtaining funding. The Clemson volunteers are using the $1,500 to purchase materials for the Campbell project, including shingles, lumber and tar paper.

For more information on Home Works, visit www.homeworksofamerica.org online. Persons interested in contributing toward heating oil for the project may e-mail: Nerbun at mnerbun@yahoo.com.