Family Stories

“God is my lifeline,” says future Habitat homeowner Tabatha. “If He doesn’t tell me to move, I don’t move.” 

Tabatha credits her faith in God for carrying her and keeping her grounded even during her most challenging times. As a mother of three, she is constantly staying busy, making sure all of her children’s needs are met. Tabatha says that the hardest part right now is helping her kids keep up with their virtual learning, especially her youngest son who started kindergarten this year.

Marquida always has been on the move. After growing up in a tiny Eastern North Carolina town, she moved to Raleigh to attend Peace College where she played basketball and participated in a Habitat mission trip. Following graduation, she married and was blessed with two beautiful, active daughters. Then she found herself a single mom.

Ever ambitious, Marquida continued to challenge herself to build a brighter future for her family. She worked at the Wake County jail and studied to advance her career, becoming a deputy with the Wake County Sheriff's Department in early 2016.

Carletha (right) and Amanda are spending this summer giving back by participating in Habitat Wake’s Summer of Service program. Carletha is a rising senior at Middle Creek High School. After graduation she plans to earn her EMT certification and attend nursing school. Amanda recently graduated from Wakefield High School and will attend Oakwood University in the fall to pursue a degree in nursing.

In a way, Gwen Reis has been building things her entire adult life. At age 20, she began building cars on an assembly line for a major automotive manufacturer in New York. She later moved to Atlanta with the company.

When Flora Mohammed’s husband left her, she didn’t know where to turn for help. Mohammed, who fled her native war-torn country of Sudan in 2011 to come to North Carolina, had five children, no job and limited English skills.

For a while, Mohammed and her children, ages 7 to 15, stayed with a friend in Cary. But they needed permanent housing, and Mohammed, 40, needed a source of income.

She’s come a long way since then.

Joann Blumenfeld is an energetic, resourceful teacher at a Wake County middle school who says that lessons she learned through Habitat for Humanity set the course for her and her family. The crux of what Joanne teaches her children is simple: Work hard. Focus on school. Give back.

In May, Marva Robinson stood with Jim Wells from the Lion’s Club and held a flame to her mortgage, dropping it on the pavement behind the Habitat Wake ReStore as staff and Board members applauded. “It feels good,” she says about paying off her mortgage. “I’ve achieved another goal. It was hard sometimes, but when I say I’m going do something, I’m going to do it!”

For more than four decades, Debbie rented a house in the Long Acres neighborhood located off Poole Road in Raleigh. The home was substandard in many areas, including electricity and plumbing. Debbie was more than ready to purchase a home of her own. In fact, about 10 years ago, one of Debbie’s friends encouraged her to apply for a home with Habitat. But it wasn’t until Habitat planned to build in the same neighborhood where she has lived nearly her whole life that Debbie finally applied.