On Saturday, March 26, 2011 Ms. Hsiao-Ning Tu, instructor of Chinese, and the Chinese Confucius Classroom hosted a fundraiser called Chopsticks for Habitat. The event raised money for the central Pottstown area while promoting the Chinese culture to members of The Hill community. After a brief lesson in how to properly use chopsticks, students then competed against each other by picking up individual beans and moving them to another cup as fast as they could in one minute.

The Chinese Confucius Classroom agreed to match three dollars for every bean that the top three winners successfully moved. The winners included Alex Peters ’11 in first place with 34 beans; Augustus Sawatzki ’12 in place second with 30 beans; and Vivek Venkatesh ’12 in third place with 28 beans. With a total of 92 beans moved, $276 will be donated to the Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County to help build homes in the Pottstown area.

Habitat for Humanity constructs simple, decent, affordable homes and empowers hardworking, low-income families to become homeowners by providing no-interest mortgages. In 21 years, Montgomery County has completed 49 homes, housing 181 people, including 123 children in Norristown, Pottstown, and Upper Dublin. Duing the past 10 years, they have completed an average of 2-3 homes per year.