While many service opportunities offered a heartwarming opportunity to connect with children and the elderly, three groups working with Habitat for Humanity reached out to the community in a more labor-intensive—and much colder— way.

Each group worked a lengthy shift, leaving school at 7:45 a.m. and returning after 3:00 p.m. For mine, that entailed hours of building outside as we put up siding for a garage in St. Paul.

The learning curve was steep. Siding the garage required making precise measurements, cutting planks to length with a power saw, and nailing them to the building’s exterior while keeping them perfectly level.

As my team discovered, the last of these presented a formidable challenge. We had to pry off several of the long siding boards that failed to pass the Habitat workers’ evaluation. Nonetheless, the end of the day found two sides of the garage mostly completed, largely thanks to the efforts of a hardworking contingent of senior boys who seemed to have the process down to a science.