Improving employee housing

When Woodstock alumni come back to Mussoorie, they find much changed, but they are often delighted to see the familiar faces of employees who have worked in the Quad, school buildings, residence halls, and the dining rooms for decades. In many ways, these long-serving employees are the true face of the school and a link to the past.

Appreciation for the faithful service of the employees is one reason why improving their living conditions has been a concern of alumni and staff for many years. Woodstock has about 100 employee housing units. Most of them are dark, damp, and lack proper kitchen and sanitary facilities. In some cases, up to 25 people share one common outdoor toilet. Most of the units are so poorly ventilated that they exacerbate respiratory problems, and many lack heating facilities and running water.

When Nigel Cooper, the school's project manager, joined the staff in May 2005, he began an ambitious project to renovate or replace all the substandard units. This fiscal year was the first for which funds were available for these improvements, and outstanding results are already coming in: 11 units have been renovated, each with living space (combined living area and bedroom), a basic kitchen, and modern, sanitary bath and toilet facilities. The units have also been prepared for installation of wood stoves for heating during the frosty Woodstock winters.

For the 2007-2008 fiscal year, Cooper wants to build ten new units and renovate an additional six. High on the list of projects is razing the unsafe multiple-family building located below the school's main kitchen and replacing it with a new, four-unit apartment building, each unit with its own balcony. This project is awaiting approval by local planning authorities. Cooper also has architect's plans for new employee housing units at the site of the old school orchard.

"At this rate," he says, "we'll have all of the employee housing up to standard in seven years." However, he would like to double the pace of upgrading. All told, he estimates, the school needs to renovate or build an additional 60 units. New construction costs are currently running at about Rs. 5 lakh (US$11,400) per unit, and the average cost of renovations is Rs.3 lakh (US$6,800). With inflation running in excess of 5 percent in India, the longer the time to complete the project, the higher the costs will be. Cooper says about Rs. 3 crore (US$685,000) would finance the whole effort at current prices.

If the funds were available, he adds, all Woodstock employees could be living in upgraded accommodations within another three and a half years without disrupting other vital needs, including the renovation of the high school and Hostel. That's where alumnus Dan Koop-Liechty ('83) enters the story. Liechty attended Woodstock for only one year (1977-1978), but the school was so important to his life that he, wife Jill, and their three children came back to live and work at Woodstock in July 2006. Dan is the high school guidance counselor, and Jill is the counselor for students at all grade levels. "It has been great to come back to Woodstock as a staff member after having last studied here in grade seven," says Dan. "But the only people who are still around I remember are Mrs. Kapadia and one of the servers in the Alter Ridge dining room. I think for a lot of former students, the people we'll recognize when we come back are the employees who have served the school and all of us so well for so many years."

The Koop-Liechtys' eyes were opened to the difficult conditions many employees face when they were invited to tea by their ayah, whose husband is employed by Woodstock. As Mennonites, the Koop-Liechtys are no strangers to the idea of a community of likeminded people working together to provide shelter for those in need. "Unfortunately," says Dan, "even though we're Mennonite, the whole barn-raising gene skipped this generation. We decided, instead, to help raise money to improve employees' housing with other staff members."

In short order, a staff committee for employee housing was established, and just before the winter break, Woodstock's first-ever internal fund drive was launched. The Koop-Liechtys found support from across the staff. Longtime faculty, such as Shonila Chander, Ajay and Sanjaya Mark, and Dana and Judy Crider, were quick to join the committee, as have newer members of the staff. The target of the drive is to raise Rs. 5 lakh to renovate two units that would otherwise not be upgraded in the current budget. Response to the drive has been strong, with nearly a lakh either paid or pledged in the first six weeks of the effort.

And then the students joined in. The Chaplaincy Committee showed a video outlining the need for improved employee housing during Friday morning devotions and announced that the Sunday Chapel offering would go to the drive. The Chapel offering was in excess of Rs.35,000.

Now, the drive is spreading to the Indian alumni community. When alumnus Randhir "Andy" Malhan ('88) heard about the project, he offered to start working with Indian alumni to support the project to house all employees in decent accommodations. Malhan, the owner of a New Delhi graphic arts firm, says he's started discussing how the Indian alumni community can best support the effort.

Faculty members Barbara and Jeff Thomas and their sons Chris and Cole took the news of the drive home with them to California over the winter break and shared it with churches that support their work at Woodstock. Already, a member of one congregation, the Leisure World Community Church of Seal Beach, has generously responded with a donation of $250 to the drive, and Barbara says she expects other donations to follow. With continued support from so many parts of the Woodstock community, the day when all the school's employees will be properly housed may come sooner rather than later.