Thursday, August 30, 2018

DIY Guide for Home Maintenance

Habitat for Humanity's Make Yourself at Home 


Habitat for Humanity International asked its ReStore supporters for their favorite home maintenance and improvement tips – and they responded by the thousands! Builder and maintenance experts reviewed and selected the best and most useful suggestions. The result is this collection of more than 150 DIY tips to care for your home inside and out—and on a budget. 
Habitat partner families know the importance of improving and maintaining a home on a tight budget. That's why we provide valuable training—including maintenance, finance and budgeting—before they earn the keys to their new Habitat homes. Thanks to our supporters, this guide can help you learn a few new helpful hacks to keep your home in top shape.
Follow this link to download the Habitat DIY Guide for Home Maintenance.


Monday, August 27, 2018

Did You Know?

What is Sweat Equity?


Sweat equity is a term used often when talking about the creation or building process. It’s about doing the work — the hard work — to bring an idea to life.
That work becomes an investment in the project. It can be an investment as real as money or land.
According to Investopedia, an online financial resource, sweat equity is the “contribution to a project or enterprise in the form of effort and toil. Sweat equity is the ownership interest, or increase in value, that is created as a direct result of hard work by the owner(s). It is the preferred mode of building equity for cash-strapped entrepreneurs in their start-up ventures, since they may be unable to contribute much financial capital to their enterprise.”
In his 2009 book If I Had A Hammer: Building Homes and Hope with Habitat for Humanity, David Rubel wrote, “Habitat affiliates require only a small down payment because few low-income families can afford more than that. Instead, partner families are required to contribute sweat equity. The phrase sweat equity refers to an ownership interest created by the sweat of a person’s labor.”
At Habitat for Humanity, sweat equity is a new homeowner investing in their home or one for another family. It’s not a form of payment, but an opportunity to work alongside volunteers who give their time to bring to life a family’s dream of owning a home.
Sweat Equity takes many forms for partner families working with Habitat. It can mean construction work on their home or on a home for another family, cleaning up the build site, working in a Habitat ReStore, assisting in administrative duties, or countless other ways of helping out. 


Homeowner classes — learning how to manage a home or finances — also count as sweat equity. Families invest their time in the long-term success of their homeownership. Throughout the process of purchasing their home, Habitat partner families can earn sweat equity credit as they learn about their mortgage, insurance, maintenance, safety and more.
The idea behind sweat equity, families working side by side with volunteers to build their homes, goes back to even before Habitat for Humanity began in 1976. Clarence Jordan — the founder of Koinonia Farm, where Habitat for Humanity began — wrote in a 1968 letter, “What the poor need is not charity but capital, not case workers but co-workers.”
That co-worker approach informs Habitat’s emphasis on sweat equity: all of us working together so that homeowners can achieve the strength, stability and independence they need to build a better life for themselves and for their families.

Wednesday, August 22, 2018

WE NEED YOUR HELP


Can you continue helping tangibly impact families in need?
Can you organize your workplace, church or group of friends to volunteer?
We build every Wednesday and Saturday and we have and IMMEDIATE need for volunteers. Can you help? Saturdays, September 15th and 29th, October 13th and 27th!

We can't do it without you

Volunteers are the heartbeat of Watauga Habitat for Humanity. Everyone, regardless of ability, can make a difference to help build affordable housing for our local families. No experience, tools or skills are necessary to participate – we will show you how!


If interested, please contact Allison Jennings at allison@wataugahabitat.org 
or 268-9545 ext. 104
Join us as we provide affordable housing solutions to hard-working families!

Wednesday, August 15, 2018

Wish List Wednesday

Watauga Habitat for Humanity’s daily work takes place on and off the construction site. You can help to make our work more effective and efficient by donating any of the following items:

Habitat Office:

  • Office Supplies (from paper to paper clips)
  • Printer Ink (HP 902)
  • Used ink cartridges that can be taken for recycling
  • Postage Stamps
  • Committee Members

ReStore:

Construction Site:

  • Saturday lunches
  • Grocery Store gift cards (to buy snacks and drinks for volunteers)
  • Small pick-up truck to haul tool trailer
  • large contractor trash bags
  • work gloves (all sizes)
  • dust masks

Donations of Professional Services:

Watauga County Habitat for Humanity and the ReStore benefit from donations of professional services including marketing, printing, and all phases of home construction.

To donate or volunteer contact:


Watauga Habitat for Humanity
1200 Archie Carroll Road
PO Box 33DTS
Boone NC 28607
info@wataugahabitat.org
828-268-9545
wataugahabitat.org


Friday, August 3, 2018

Why Shelter?

Every day, more and more families find themselves in a struggle to keep a decent roof over their heads.
Caught in punishing cycles of unpredictable rent increases, overcrowded conditions, or lack of access to land and affordable financing, these families live with a constant burden of uncertainty, stress and fear.
Habitat for Humanity knows that safe, decent and affordable shelter plays an absolutely critical role in helping families to create a new cycle, one filled with possibilities and progress. Affordable homeownership frees families and fosters the skills and confidence they need to invest in themselves and their communities. The outcomes can be long-lasting and life-changing.
With a little help, Habitat homeowners are able to achieve the strength and self-reliance they need to build better lives for themselves and their families. They are empowered to overcome the barriers that so often stand between their families and better, healthier, more financially stable lives.
Studies conducted by academics and experts draw a straight line between housing quality and the well-being of children. Surveys of Habitat homeowners show improved grades, better financial health, parents who are more sure that they can meet their family’s needs. Wherever we work, we witness tangible evidence that strong and stable homes help build strong and stable communities.
Decent shelter provides the solid foundation for all of this. It’s the platform on which a family lives out today’s realities and prepares for tomorrow’s transformations. Every Habitat house changes lives: those of the families who help build them and pay an affordable mortgage or loan and all those who offer them a hand up in a time of need.

DONATE NOW 

Summer Newsletter 2022

  Summer  Newsletter Hi friends! Thank you so much for your continued support of Watauga County  Habitat  for Humanity. It has been some tim...