Habitat Wake Happenings

It’s always an exciting day when you get to participate in a house dedication—a time to celebrate with the homebuyers, the volunteers, the sponsors, and the Habitat staff who have worked so hard, in partnership, to create this incredible new opportunity for a family.

We are dedicating two homes later today—with the Pender and Johnson families—on Skycrest Drive in NE Raleigh close to our offices and Raleigh ReStore.  It will be a great celebration, as they always are, especially in this beautiful, early spring weather!

I just had the distinct privilege of attending the closing for Ricky Mitchell and the house we built together with him in Long Acres in Raleigh.  Habitat is a partnership, not a charity give-away.  And with Ricky this couldn’t be truer.  Ricky himself was actively engaged in all aspects of the construction.  Ricky’s brother, a professional roofer, installed the roof shingles.  Ricky’s co-worker, a trim carpenter, installed all the interior doors in a matter of hours and then cut the baseboards which Ricky installed.

This past Sunday was our 11^th annual Holiday Home Tour fundraiser and the crowd gathered was not only treated to some good food and music, but also to hearing from our current homebuyers in Garner, Michael and Waldrena Robinson and their experience with Habitat Wake.  As we approach Thanksgiving, I find myself grateful and blessed to be a part of an organization that can make such a huge difference in people’s lives in such a simple, but profound way.

Last Saturday was the long-anticipated opening of our second ReStore, located at 181 High House Road in Cary.  It was a great occasion with speeches, ribbon cutting, balloons, and lots of eager customers. For us, ReStore has a three fold mission:  1)  Assist families in securing low-cost products to upgrade their own dwellings   2)  Raise funds for Habitat for Humanity’s mission to provide simple, decent, affordable housing for those in need  and 3) to promote re-use of products rather than discarding them to landfills.

Sorry for the lack of blogging lately.  We’ve been busy, both on our construction sites and in putting together a plan of action for our Fiscal Year 2012, which begins in July.

At Thursday’s annual Habitat Blueprint Breakfast at the North Raleigh Hilton, our guest speaker, Frank Anton, a leading expert on the home building industry asked attendees how many believed that there is currently a housing shortage.  Of the nearly 600 attendees, 2 raised their hands.  Frank proclaimed that the others were wrong. He went on to speak that despite the current general oversupply of housing in the U.S.

Americorps, the domestic version of Peace Corps, is in the news lately.  It’s in the news because some lawmakers in Washington have proposed eliminating the entire program.  This past weekend the House of Representatives passed a measure eliminating the program as part of a deficit reduction strategy.

Back in 1988, as we were launching Habitat for Humanity in Lynchburg, Virginia, I met a builder who was eager to help.  In fact, on our very first build day on December 1, he was there with some of his crew helping to build Stella Culpepper’s home.  Tom Gerdy is his name.