In the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, volunteers came from around the country to help in repairing homes damaged by the storm. Lieutenant Ken Schulman, firefighter and team leader of Illinois Water Rescue 1, chose to spend his vacation returning to Asheville to help Habitat’s rebuilding efforts.
Robin found himself on a Habitat jobsite the year after he retired. Like so many other core volunteers, he found a new social group at Habitat. He is part of the Thursday core crew, largely because that’s the day of the week that he first volunteered.
Seeing my friends here is the best. You’re all like my second family. And knowing I can keep things organized, alphabetized, so people know exactly where stuff is supposed to go. I love what I do here.
Though their volunteer service at Asheville Habitat is largely apart from each other, their impact on the organization, as well as their appreciation for its results, is significant and shared.
When asked what he finds most rewarding about his nearly two decades of service, he points to the camaraderie: “Working with the people here.” It’s the simple routine of shared work that keeps him coming back.
Volunteerism with Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity experienced a spike in 2025 on the heels of Hurricane Helene. A significant increase in out-of-town groups contributed, as did an increase in the number of local Home Repair core volunteers committing to helping repair homes every week. Nearly 2,700 individual volunteers collectively contributed more than 84,000 hours of service. The value of that donated time? According to Independent Sector, which values volunteer time at $34.79/hour, that level of service represents nearly $3M!
Core volunteers (weekly or bi-weekly) are foundational to Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity. Their commitment to service has helped thousands of adults and children secure safe, stable and affordable homes, and enabled hundreds of aging adults to remain in their homes. Throughout National Volunteer Appreciation Week, staff will be visiting all volunteer sites, delivering special treats and appreciations to thank volunteers for their service.
“At Habitat, our work builds and rebuilds homes—but it also builds and rebuilds community and hope. Our volunteers open doors to stability for a family, to connection between neighbors, and to a deeper sense of purpose for those who serve. Together, we can build something bigger than any of us could do alone,” shared Andy Barnett, CEO of Asheville Habitat.
Eleven core volunteers reached noteworthy service milestones:
In addition to celebrating years of service, Asheville Habitat also recognizes annual hours of service. Many volunteers individually contribute hundreds and hundreds of hours each year. In 2025, these volunteers earned the Top 5 Hours:
What keeps them coming back, week after week and year after year? Overwhelmingly, it is a desire to support Habitat’s mission, enjoying camaraderie with fellow volunteers, and feeling a sense of meaning and fulfilment.
Construction Services core volunteer, Robin Smith offered, “You retire from a job, you don’t retire from the need for meaning, purpose, and joy. You find that at Habitat.”
Some fun facts about Asheville Habitat’s volunteer program:
Converging in Asheville from North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park, Santa Barbara, San Francisco, Oakland, and Atlanta, Cisco’s Crisis Response Team bonded in a meaningful way. Some knew each other, others were meeting for the first time and becoming fast friends.
by Danny Mendl
Joe Linville, Dave DeCarme, and Garland Walker. Visit an Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity Home Repair job site on any given Wednesday and you’re likely to find one —or all— of these men working. We tagged along for a Disaster Home Repair job to learn how they got started volunteering with Asheville Habitat and what keeps them coming back each week.
Joe replacing baseboard in a Hurricane Helene damaged home.
Joe Linville has volunteered with Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity’s Home Repair team for six years — and for many of those years, alongside Dave DeCarme and Garland Walker. A now-retired firefighter of 30 years, Joe gained carpentry experience as a part-time handyman to supplement his income while working as a firefighter in Florida. Following his move to Western North Carolina in his retirement, Joe, having personally built two homes and renovated two more, sought out Habitat, where he thought his skills would be of good use.
Joe’s volunteer service began with a few days on a New Home Construction build, but after accepting an opportunity to work with Home Repair, he quickly realized that the dynamic, problem-solving nature of the repair work appealed to him more. “You have to improvise a lot on older homes because nothing is plumb, level, or square. You get into a job and maybe you have to tear out some drywall, and you get in there and find some of the studs are rotted. So now you have another issue you have to fix before you can do the job you started on,” he shares.
Beyond just the puzzles contained in the walls of old homes, Joe credits his enjoyment of his volunteer service to the camaraderie with his fellow Wednesday Core group and the impact of the work itself, saying, “The rewarding part of this is being able to see that some of these elderly people get to stay in their home. Whether six months or two years or ten years after that, at least they have a safe place to live, right? That’s what a lot of this is about.”
As far as Joe is concerned, the social and societal benefits will keep him showing up to Home Repair jobs for as long as he’s able to. An avid traveler who aims to take two or three big trips a year, most recently to Scotland and Utah, he says, “My mantra is sort of, ‘I want to do as much as I can for as long as I can,’ and if you stay active, it gives you a better chance of being able to do things for longer.”
Joe also knows that there will be no shortage of opportunities to stay active through volunteer service in the wake of Hurricane Helene, offering a parting message to potential volunteers:
“I’d like to say, as far as anybody reading this, if they have any interest and would like to volunteer, we’d appreciate all the people we can get going — especially with home repair now that we’re really doing home recovery more than home repair. The scope is really picking up.”
Dave DeCarme was born and raised in Pennsylvania, but spent his professional career in Washington DC, serving as Director of the Office of International Transportation and Trade, and moved to Asheville in his retirement. With no prior experience with Habitat for Humanity as an organization, Dave first began volunteering with Asheville Habitat around nine years ago when a neighbor invited him to tag along. “Other than seeing Jimmy Carter on the TV once in a while, I knew nothing about Habitat,” Dave says. His neighbor has since moved out of the area, but for Dave, the volunteer service stuck around.
Dave cutting baseboard for installation in a Hurricane Helene damaged home.
Today, he volunteers with Asheville Habitat two days a week, spending Wednesdays working alongside Joe and Garland on Home Repair jobs and Fridays at our New Home Construction sites. Like Joe, Dave finds the ever-changing nature and improvisational problem-solving of Home Repair’s work appealing. He credits some of his carpentry skills to his father, a man with a strong “Do-It-Yourself” attitude, but the rest to his years on the jobsite. Of his time with Habitat, Dave says, “You feel you’re contributing something. But there’s also never a day that I work here that I don’t learn something, so I get something out of it as well as giving something. It works out well for me.”
When asked why someone might consider volunteering with Habitat, Dave keeps it simple:
“You’re helping yourself by helping others.”
Garland Walker has been volunteering with Asheville Area Habitat for Humanity for over ten years. Once an attorney in fishery management in Alaska,
Garland applies caulk to recently installed baseboards in a Hurricane Helene damaged home.
Garland moved back to his home state of North Carolina in retirement. Growing up in Winston-Salem, he was fond of Western North Carolina and its mountains for recreation and always imagined he might end up in Asheville eventually.
When asked what brought him to Habitat, Garland says, “Like most everybody else, I was looking for something to kind of give back and do something once I retired.” With no prior experience in carpentry or construction aside from small fixes in his own home, he signed up for a volunteer shift with Habitat’s New Home Construction program. On his second day of volunteering, he was offered a chance to go out with the growing Home Repair team and never looked back.
“Because I had no formal training, it taught me things that I could still use around the house. I’m not going to have to build a house, but I might have to repair a deck or a wall. It’s these little things that will be, or have been, useful at home,” he shares.
Having watched Asheville Habitat’s Home Repair program grow from a one- or two-person team into what it is today — a “top-notch program with three leaders that take people out to do work every day,” as he puts it — Garland credits the success of the program to its director, Joel Johnson, saying, “It’s Joel and his leadership that was able to do that. I don’t think everyone could have done that, and it was quite something to watch and appreciate.”
To his enjoyment of the work and his time on the jobsite, Garland credits his fellow volunteers, the camaraderie built by working together each week, and the reward of the work itself:
“It’s a great thing because you’re doing good work for people that need the good work, and you’re working with good people. It’s that trifecta. I think it’s hard to beat that combination.”
Interested in volunteering with Asheville Habitat’s Disaster Home Repair program? Learn more about available opportunities.
Longtime WomBAT and construction core volunteer Julie White talks about the power of Women Build and what keeps her coming back year after year to Habitat.
Evan feels one can sit around and complain, or get involved, volunteer, and do things that make you feel good. His positivity radiates as he talks about his life, his family, and his interests.
61 Weaver Blvd. Weaverville, NC 28787
828-484-9432
Hours:
Tuesday - Saturday
10:00 AM – 6:00 PM
GET DIRECTIONS
