PURSUITS OF HAPPINESS Renovations : An Interview with Jan Sensenich
Jennifer Emens-Butler : I ’ m here in the Norwich office of Jan Sensenich to interview you , Jan , for my Pursuits of Happiness column . Going back to my first interview , with Bernie Lambek , I ’ m still struck by the fact that I had cases with Bernie for nearly 20 years and never knew he was so devoted to , and so good at , ping-pong ! So here I am , interviewing you about something I only heard you mention once , despite having weekly , if not daily , discussions with you also for about 20 years in my bankruptcy practice .
Jan Sensenich : That ’ s true . It ’ s amazing how little we know about other attorneys ’ outside interests and talents even if we deal with them on a regular basis .
JEB : So , why don ’ t you start off and tell me generally-- was it the Norwich Congregation Church , the High School or just your desire to do something charitable generally that first drew you to this incredible project ?
JS : What first drew me to it , this goes back to when our son Todd was in his last year of middle school , when our church , the Norwich Congregational Church , was becoming very involved in what was a national project . There was an organization called the Interfaith Church Rebuilding Partnership , which started in the mid-90 ’ s but basically dissolved in the early 2000 ’ s , that our church got involved with in 1999 .
JEB : Was it for burned churches ?
JS : Yes , for burned churches . And what started it was back in in the 90 ’ s , there was a wave of racially motivated church burning of African American churches in the south , where these generally fairly poor congregations which were underinsured with fairly humble church buildings were burned to the ground , leaving these people with no place to worship . And the churches down there , they are not just places you go to worship-- the black church is a like the foundation of the community . The whole civil rights movement was really driven by black churches in the south .
There got to be a sense of that we have to do something to help and some national organization of different ecumenical groups and churches got together and organized another group that took up this work , the National Coalition for Burned Churches . Churches would organize work trips from all over the country of volunteers , some college , some high school , with church groups and they would provide transportation and they would take care of tools . So there would be a trailer of tools and hard hats and someone f to direct the work . And all you had to do was be a volunteer …
JEB : Did you have to have any skills ?
JS : At that time no . They sort of told you what to do and it was largely a lot of unskilled stuff , which expanded over the years . I think there were at least two years underway before I got started . I got started in 2000 and my thought was this would be great for our son to do something like this because he always loved working with tools and always loved constructions projects . I thought it would be a way to do something good on his spring break , having the attitude that this is something we should do . I didn ’ t expect it would be fun or pleasant , but I thought I should do this for my son ; I should do this for my church .
JEB : And expose your son to doing charitable work . And these groups were all school groups that were attached to churches ?
JS : Yeah , I think the first ones were a number of churches and schools . There was the Sharon Academy in 2000 and the Hanover , NH Lutheran Church , which got involved in 2003 , and then our church , which ended up being the leader that organized it . It ’ s also worth noting that not all of the school volunteers were members of particular churches . There were some Jewish kids and a Muslim exchange student on trips . Anyone who wanted to come was always welcome . By the time I was getting involved in it , the whole coalition for burned churches was starting to phase out because they had done a lot of work and other groups like ours took charge .
JEB : Just within those first two years ?
JS : Yeah , in a couple of years and my sense was what was happening bit by bit every year . But our Pastor Mary Brownlow , was getting more involved in actually doing the organizing and there came a point sort of toward of probably the end of the first three years 2000- 2002 , where it was really our church , and Rev . Mary Brownlow specifically , that was sort of taking over the lead in making these trips happen .
JEB : No national ties anymore ?
JS : Right it was just , and in fact was very little supervision . By that time Mary was really the lead person behind this . She was organizing the transportation . There are several of us that did a lot of trips and we were the construction know how , to the degree we had the constructions know how .
JEB : Your church in Norwich was the only Vermont one or were there other groups from around the country still at it ?
JS : There were other groups who were doing it from all over the country . In fact , it seemed like , because of the schedule , we always seemed to be following volunteers from Harvard University . And we found out just because someone comes from an Ivy League school doesn ’ t mean they have great carpentry skills !
JEB : No , just the opposite !
JS : Right , for example we might end up sheet rocking the church where the carpentry was done by the Harvard University group and we all thought , what were these guys thinking ? It ’ s like the seams aren ’ t going to be right here , nothing is 16 inches on center . But I recall in 2002 the Harvard crew sheet-rocked an entire Church and we came along a week or so later and mudded and taped all their work . Of course there were things we needed to fix , but in the big
8 THE VERMONT BAR JOURNAL • WINTER 2017 www . vtbar . org