Support World Habitat Day on October 1st!

In 1985, the United Nations declared the first Monday in October to be World Habitat Day to
recognize the vast housing need in cities around the world.

World Habitat Day is a special opportunity for Habitat for Humanity to call on individuals and
organizations to help us address poverty housing and create housing solutions with families in
urgent need of them. We urge you to consider how you can help strengthen our communities.

Take action:
 
• Visit habitat.org, where you can register to become an online advocate and receive alerts
about how you can speak up for those whose housing plights so often go unheard.
 
• Make a donation in honor of World Habitat Day
 
• Connect with us! Follow us on Twitter and Facebook. #worldhabitatday
 
• Attend our Home Dedication Ceremony and learn how Habitat impacts the families it serves.

Garage Sale to Benefit Habitat EKC

Faith United Methodist Church is hosting their 13th Annual Garage Sale to benefit Habitat for Humanity of East King County.

Friday, Sept. 28 & Saturday, Sept. 29, 2012
from 8:30am to 4:00pm

Faith United Methodist Church
3924 Issaquah-Pine Lake Road
Issaquah WA, 98029

All proceeds will go toward new home building projects!

Click here for more information.

Store Volunteer Highlight -- Andrea

Andrea has been one of our awesome weekend volunteers since the beginning of July.  She first got connected to the Habitat for Humanity Store in Bellevue by seeking an internship opportunity. As a student at the University of Phoenix, her studies require a certain amount of field work or service hours with a local non-profit organization. Her interest in promoting affordable housing led her to us.

Like most of our volunteers, Andrea has worn many hats and has helped out with various aspects of the Store’s operations. In addition to providing excellent customer service, helping price and stage items, and managing inquiries at the front desk, she has helped our Store manager develop a list of schools/churches/businesses for donation outreach.  Her help has been invaluable in our ability to connect with more people in the community!  

Andrea says her favorite aspect of volunteering at the store is “engaging with the customers, volunteers and staff.  It is fun to see what treasures customers find” –she’s even found a few treasures of her own for her craft projects.  Even though her internship will come to a close, she’ll have good memories: “It is a lot of fun; you get to meet great people (volunteers, staff and customers).  Also, you are helping affordable housing.” 

We’ve appreciated your positive, can-do attitude and willingness to learn new things; thank you for all that you do, Andrea!

Meet our New AmeriCorps

Darryl Bray
From: Connecticut & Vermont

Site: Rainier Vista and/or West Way
 

Spend one afternoon with Darryl and you may learn more interesting and useful facts about living green, vinegar flies, video production, yerts, DIY construction projects, and other fascinating aspects of our world than you learned all year. Give Darryl a chance to introduce himself, you won’t be disappointed!

 

Kristen Holsapple

From: Milwaukee, WI

Site: Rainier Vista, La Fortuna

 

Likes: animals, yoga, words, being outside, social work and social justice, learning, and building with Habitat. Ask me about figure/ice skating, and tell me about any rinks you know of!

 

 

Kaitlyn Le Baudour

From: Northern California

Site: House of the Immediate Future/Seattle Center

Speak to me in Spanish because I love it! If Spanish isn't your thing you can join me for eating beans and rice, blackberry picking, rock climbing, or backpacking. I will always say yes to spontaneous adventures. I love people’s stories and documenting them through writing   and photography whenever possible. Oh and if I had a dog I'd name him Cowboy, I'm a country girl at heart 

Tracie Fowler

From: Olympia, WA

Site: Rainier Vista

Likes: Playing in Seattle's many bodies of water, visiting animal shelters to get my animal fix, outfitting others' homes with cool thriftstore finds, and learning about cool people, things, and happenings through conversation.

 

 

 

Rob Riethmiller

From: Eugene, Oregon

Site: HfH East King County office in Redmond (Construction Systems)

Rob is an outdoor junkie! He enjoys backpacking, hiking, peak bagging, mountain and road biking, community gardening, traveling, and ultimate frisbee. He is passionaite about living and designing sustainably. He also plays a mean harmonica.

 

 

 

Andrew Withnell

From: Washington, DC

Site: West Way
Likes: Icees, Oreos, urbanism, and sometimes, yeeros.

Fiji: Global Village Journal

Fiji - Global Village Journal from Mike Hammerquist, Habitat EKC Construction Site Supervisor and Global Village volunteer

September 1, 2012

Fiji is beautiful and the people are extremely friendly.  We spent several hours walking, seeing the sites. There are churches, a mosque, and a Hindu temple within several miles of the hotel. On our first attempt to find the temple we found a McDonalds, a colony of fruit bats and a road that led off to the wrong part of town. After back tracking to the hotel and eating lunch (Bombay pizza), we tried again and made it further on foot, then got on a bus. We had a local take us under her wing and she led us through the market to the temple (pic).

So far the team seems to be a good fit and we had a good time  being tourists together today and I think we will work well at the site.

September 4, 2012

We are working at Koroipita (Peter's Village) outside Latoka. We arrived late in the afternoon and received a briefing and a tour from Peter himself. His model rents a simple home to slum residents or squatters at $1NZ per day. This includes water, garbage, a nurse station, and schooling for the children (with a preschool and computer lab onsite).

 

We will be building a simple wood frame structure (with lots of strapping) on a concrete foundation, covered by corrugated steel roof and siding. They are designed to withstand the 300kph winds that can come with the typhoon season. They are also required to plant vegetable crops, compost scraps, and maintain erosion control systems. It seems to be a well though out planned community. Peter became involved through the local Rotary Club, but couldn't get big grants to do the work because his Rotary Club was fairly small. He finally brokered a deal where Habitat manages the money from the New Zealand Aid grant and ensures accountability and adherence to the grant requirements and he gets to work within those parameters to complete his plan.

 

Today (Tuesday) was the first working day and it began beautifully, but was rained out a little after 3:30. We started with a bare foundation on 2 homes and framed and sheathed the floors and built 4 walls and nearly finished the first wall we will stand. There are 2 parts to the homes, with a kitchen/ bath/ toilet separated from the living area with a breezeway.

September 7, 2012

We were rained out at 2pm on the second day and it drizzled all morning on the 3rd day, but has cleared up and hot weather from here on out! The mud is what the site supervisor calls the "perfect clay", as it is both sticky  and slick. I frequently ended up wit 3" of mud on the bottom of my boots. Within 12 hours of the rain stopping the ground was solid again and we worked to chip off the dried mud from the day before.

 

Much was accomplished even with the briefing/ site tour the 1st day and 2 rain shortened days. We are building 2 houses intended for older couples without children at home and abandoned mothers only a few children. They are next to each other and we are sharing a generator and chop saw. The build is well organized and the local crew leaders know the buildings, so progress is impressive(pic). We should finish up on Tuesday or Wednesday and move on to punch list tasks on other homes the previous teams couldn't finish.

On Friday at lunch the Kinder Care kids sang us a couple of songs (pic) then the villagers served us lunch.

 

 

 

"Together We Build"  Kicks off  at our Renton site on September 6!

Together We Build (TWB) is an Interfaith Coalition of Christians, Jews, and Muslims seeking to find common ground and learn from one another as they work together to build houses for low-income families in King County. They have held an annual event each year in pursuit of their mission to show the world that together, we can build a stronger community.

This is Thursday through Saturday in the two consecutive weeks surrounding the 11^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, which were the initial motivations behind forming TWB.

Over the last eleven years, TWB has contributed a total of $450, 531 to Habitat for Humanity’s affordable home building program, providing the funding equivalent of four houses!  Their goal this year to bring the total amount contributed to Habitat EKC to $500,000.

Habitat for Humanity of East King County’s Executive Director, Tom Granger is impressed with TWB’s impact on the community.

 “We are honored to be the host site for the TWB community project for the eleventh year.  TWB’s mission aligns with that of Habitat for Humanity, the entire community working together for the common good.   The members of TWB have demonstrated their commitment to interfaith dialogue and the shared joy of building a stronger community together,” said Granger. “Rather than just talking about how we should all get along, they are actually doing it and Habitat is proud to be a part of it. They are a tremendous blessing to Habitat’s mission of serving low-income families.”

This year, the Interfaith Service will be hosted at Newport Presbyterian Church located at 4010 120th Avenue Southeast in Bellevue on Saturday, September 8, 2012. The service will take place from 5:00 pm to 6:00 pm.

An all-day Youth Program will also take place on Saturday, September 8 at Habitat’s La Fortuna site in Renton. Samar Malik, a member of the Ahmidiyya Muslim Community, will lead the youth in a special project that does not involve power tools or ladders.

To learn more about Together We Build, visit www.togetherwebuild.org. To see a list of the faith communities that are participating this year, visit www.togetherwebuild.org/congregations.

Why We Build: Homeowner Story

Mandy at our 2011 Growing with Habitat Breakfast

Habitat International recently featured Mandy McCulley, our Former AmeriCorps Vista Sustainability Coordinator, on their "Why We Build" series.

Mandy's interest in atchitecture was sparked when she was a little girl, watching her mom work with Habitat to build their new home in Iowa. Mandy worked hard to reach her goal to become an architect and  eventually graduated from college with  a degree in Architecture. She decided to give back to others and help pay it forward by serving  Habitat for Humanity of East King County as our AmeriCorps/VISTA Sustainable Building Coordinator. 

Mandy is now working at Mulvanney Architects and has recently purchased a home with her husband, Joe. We are so proud of you, Mandy, for all of your accomplishments.

Click here to read Mandy's full story, "Aspiring architect finds inspiration in her childhood home."



Why We Build Series