Asheville Habitat for Humanity is successful in part because our local business community steps up to be part of the solution to the affordable housing problem. We want to support the businesses who support us, so we’re sharing some of the ways they are continuing to operate in these challenging times. Please consider patronizing them!
By Maddy Alewine, Communications Specialist
A home is more than a roof and four walls. Homeownership is the primary way Americans accumulate wealth. This is true for Victor, a retired forklift driver and Asheville High graduate, who inherited the Oakley home from his great aunt in 2018. Victor’s grandfather built this home with his own two hands in 1944.
AmeriCorps member Lucas works on the trim in the back bedroom.
AmeriCorps member Cecily and Home Repair Supervisor Pete install new kitchen cabinets.
Home can be a safe and healthy haven, but for Victor, he found himself living in an old home with a growing laundry list of repairs including heavily deteriorating floors and walls with moisture-ridden wood, and faulty plumbing. Victor’s cerebral palsy means he is unable to repair and upkeep with the growing number of problems in his home, even with family regularly checking in and assisting him.
AmeriCorps Jennie installs vinyl flooring in the kitchen.
Asheville Habitat’s Home Repair team demolished the kitchen, back bedroom, and bathroom to repair the floor framing and install vapor barriers and insulation. New subflooring and vinyl flooring were installed and plumbing was fixed in the bathroom and kitchen. While new and sturdy floors gave the three rooms a whole new feel, new kitchen appliances and fresh paint and trim really made the place shine. Victor and his family expressed how much they love the work that was done. Victor can now live safer and with dignity in his family’s home.
The finished kitchen
New kitchen appliances
completed bathroom
Completed back bedroom
New walk-in shower
To close out National Volunteer Appreciation Week, Asheville Habitat Executive Director Andy Barnett has a message for our volunteers.
Happy National Volunteer Appreciation Week!! We recognize all our volunteers who have served and continue to serve remotely. Distance can’t stop our volunteers!!
The routine of showing up to swing a hammer or lay flooring alongside a community of volunteers, staff, and future homeowners is for many Habitat volunteers as ingrained in their daily life as their weekly trip to the grocery. As if the cancellation of all volunteer participation on jobsites wasn’t interruption enough for our volunteers, there was another meaningful tradition within this weekly routine that was interrupted as well.
Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity is recognizing milestones and thanking volunteers during Volunteer Appreciation Week (April 20-25). Though this year amidst Covid-19, it means ZOOM coffee breaks, mailed rather than hand-delivered cards, and gifts presented at a later date.
“When I told my family and friends I was starting an AmeriCorps position, their response was mostly “Ummmmm, why?” What they thought was taking a step backward for me, ended up being a huge leap forward.”
61 Weaver Blvd. Weaverville, NC 28787
828-484-9432
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