Southern Virginia Students Help Build Home for Local Lexington Family
“Seeking to put God’s love into action, Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope.”
By Sarah Brezenski
This semester Southern Virginia Knights have the opportunity with local and students from the region to help build a house for Habitat for Humanity in Lexington, a local branch of an organization serving families by providing better and cheaper housing options throughout the world.
Lynn Harris, the Director of Development and Marketing for Rockbridge Area Habitat for Humanity, had high praise for the Rockbridge locals and university students from Southern Virginia University, Virginia Military Institution, Washington and Lee, and Madison University who have participated in the program. They have volunteered thousands of hours and provided essential financial support to fund construction.
Rockbridge Area Habitat partnered with nearly 100 volunteers in 2017. Worldwide, its parent organization works with more than two million individuals each year to providing hosuing for families in need.
Working entirely with volunteers makes homes more affordable, but it isn’t always easy. “Volunteers … come and go when they feel like it. We have a saying at Habitat, ‘a volunteer is never late,’ so we take what people are willing to offer and work with who we have today,” said Leo Decanini, Construction Site Supervisor and Volunteer Coordinator for the Rockbridge Area.
What they do bring, though, is a positive attitude.
“The best part of working exclusively with volunteers is that everyone is there by choice and is highly motived,” he said. According to Decanini, volunteers often accomplish far more than any trained professional ever could.
Habitat came to this community in 1989 and has since built four homes every year in the area, including in Rockbridge County, Lexington, Glasgow and Buena Vista according to Harris. Three of these houses are constructed by volunteer efforts and the fourth is started by high-schoolers as part of the Rockbridge County School’s Building Trades program. Decanini said Rockbridge Habitat’s current project marks their 70th home in the county.
Building homes from scratch isn’t the only thing Habitat does for the community though. Rockbridge Area Habitat also assists in what she called “aging in place,” a program to provide accessibility features in aging citizens’ homes. They also have two ReStores in Lexington and Buena Vista — volunteer-maintained thrift stores whose profits help fund the construction of houses.
Habitat also provides home rehabilitation, which includes installing new roofs and floors and replacing plumbing. Habitat has helped with 30 home “rehabs”. When combined with 70 completed homes, this amounts to “100 families whose lives were materially improved by Habitat,” as Decanini put in an email. That doesn’t include the impact the projects have made in the lives of dozens of volunteers.
Jessica Brotherson, ’18, has taken part in the Habitat build and emphasized the mutual benefits of volunteers and future homeowners. “It is crucial for [students] to take part in service opportunities such as Habitat because it amply benefits both students, the community partners, and the beneficiaries of our labor. Students are able to get outside the [Southern Virginia] ‘bubble’ and really start to feel a part of and get to know the community,” she said.
By participating in Habitat builds, students and locals are actively changing the lives of low-income families in Rockbridge County. Habitat doesn’t give away the homes for free and to just anyone, though. Habitat selects homeowners based on their shelter needs, their ability to meet a customized mortgage plan and their willingness to actively work with Habitat, which the organization calls “sweat equity.” Sweat equity can takes many forms: they might give hours on the build site, help staff a ReStore, or give their time to Habitat in some other way.
They also can earn sweat equity by participating in financial education classes offered by Habitat. Ultimately, sweat equity is a way for Habitat Homeowners to “bring to life [their] family’s dream of owning a home,” according to their website.
Habitat is changing the world family by family in local communities throughout the world. They do this because, according to their website, 1 in 4 people worldwide are in need of better shelter and their vision is “a world where everyone has a decent place to live.”
