Over labor day weekend junior, Jonathan Mercer traveled to Houston to help with relief for Hurricane Harvey.

One of Mercer’s family friends asked him and his dad to join him in helping the Houston community, Mercer decided to go because he thought it would be an amazing opportunity to serve.

“It really put everything into perspective,” said Mercer. “We have so many things here that we take for granted. It was incredibly eye opening and just how lucky I am to be in the situation I am”.

Mercer said he not only enjoyed getting to help the Houston community but also enjoyed getting to see an entire community working together as one.

“The whole community banned together,” said Mercer. “It was amazing to see. The heart of the whole entire Houston community, everyone that wasn’t affected was helping, everyone that was affected was helping.”

He said Houston was also very thankful for Mercer’s help in trying to get everything done.

“Every day I worked,” said Mercer. “It really just showed me the heart of serving and how loving these people can be.”

Mercer put in a lot of work everyday to get closer to recovery.

“I punched a bunch of walls”, said Mercer. “We had to take the drywall out of everything”.

Mercer also took out cabinets, ripped out carpet and moved furniture all to help the Houston community. This was just a portion of the work to get the Houston community closer to recovery, but made a big difference in some people’s lives.

“Their lives were just completely altered,” he said. “Being able to do that little act of service really makes a big difference and saved them thousands of dollars.”