by Elizabeth McFarland –
Earlier this Spring, over a dozen women from Seeds of Strength joined the Habitat for Humanity of Williamson County to pour some sweat into one of the projects our grant dollars support. In 2017, Seeds of Strength awarded Habitat $24,600 to help purchase construction materials and supplies for three new homes in Georgetown. One of these homes has been completed, and two more will be completed this summer. As the new owner of the completed home told us, “We finally have a place to call home – our home! The day we dedicated the home I remember my son asking my sister if we were going back home, and I was so happy to tell him we ARE home…this is our home!”
Habitat for Humanity builds and improves homes for families in need of decent, affordable housing in our community. With the help of donations of money, material, and talent, Habitat provides safe homes and affordable mortgages to community members who otherwise would not have a place to call home. Prospective homeowners and volunteers contribute thousands of hours of “sweat equity” to accomplish these goals. Various volunteer groups help with builds over a year period, and this time it was SoS.
Early on the morning of May 12, 2018, thirteen current and prospective members of SoS reported for duty at a Habitat home under construction on Valley Street in Georgetown. The frame and roof of the house were complete, but much work needed to be done to install siding and to frame doors and windows. Alongside the new owner of the home and her numerous family members who had come from all over Texas to help with the construction, SoS volunteers measured and cut plank siding, mounted the siding on the walls, nailed in frames, and generally helped wherever and however it was needed. Next door was another Habitat home. It was completed, but there was quite a bit of clean-up still to be done. The SoS ladies went through that home with a white glove and left it spic-and-span for the new owner.
This was an amazing hands-on opportunity for our members to get to know our Habitat for Humanity and the hard work they do for our community. Every single person that helped that day left the build site sweaty, and maybe a little sunburned, but happy to know that they truly made a difference in that family’s life.