Habitat Wake Happenings

I made my way out to our White Oak Villas site in Apex on Saturday morning to help greet our 100+ construction volunteers.  Instead, I was greeted by the Town of Apex’s entire planning department, who had arrived early to do all the landscaping for our first 8 homes in the community!

We work with planning departments to get our site plans and house plans approved as well as all of the various inspections necessary in new home construction.  One of the staff members mentioned how cool it was to help build one of the communities she had actually approved!

Last night, we celebrated with Jane & Yabesh, the dedication of their new home at White Oak Villas in Apex.  What a story of triumph they had to tell.

Five years ago, they won an “immigration lottery” in their homeland of Kenya to immigrate legally to the U.S.  This had been a goal of theirs for literally years so that their four children could receive the best education possible.

In celebration of World Habitat Day this week, Habitat Wake hosted our good friend, Alberto Benitez, national director of Habitat for Humanity in Honduras.

Last week Habitat Wake had the benefit of working with Coastal Federal Credit Union on the groundbreaking ceremony of 4911 Werriebee Drive in Raleigh. What was so special about this event was that Coastal is the Exclusive sponsor on this Habitat home. As the only exclusive sponsor this year, Coastal Federal Credit Union raised $100,000 for the purchase of the land and the construction of this home - an amazing contribution and achievement.

Habitat Wake was recognized, along with four other Triangle Home Builders, for our excellence in green home building at an award reception on August 1. Green building is especially important to Habitat homebuyer partners because lower utility costs and better indoor air quality improve our construction of safe, affordable housing.

I'd like to introduce our second guest blogger: one of our wonderful volunteers.  Janelle is a first year full-time MBA Candidate at NC State University's Jenkins Graduate School. She has a BBA in Marketing from James Madison University. Most recently before starting business school at NC State, Janelle was marketing manager at Wilkinson Supply Company. She's a lover of running and Pinterest. When not in class, you could probably find her exploring the restaurant scene in downtown Raleigh.

Yesterday, we hosted Frank Reed, Habitat for Humanity International’s, National Director of ReStore Support.  Frank came to congratulate our ReStore staff and volunteers on the results from our most recent fiscal year, where sales grew by 18% and the contribution to our mission reached nearly $900,000!  He also left us with many great ideas on how to continue to grow this part of our work and serve even more families in the future.

Last Wednesday, we had the privilege of dedicating our most recent new home in Augusta Crossings that was built in partnership with the Ali/Karim family and our sponsors from Red Hat, WalMart, and Grifols.

Tomorrow, Norma Smith is retiring after serving 16 years with Habitat Wake.  Norma is Habitat Wake’s longest tenured staff member in our history.   Thousands of volunteers from near and far have interacted with Norma over the years and have been greeted by her as they came out to volunteer.  I always tell our staff that we are here to set the stage and enable the work of volunteers.   Norma’s work embodied that.  Everyone is welcome and everyone has something to give.