Our Big Event-One Week Away

THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS

 

PREMIER SPONSORS - $5000

The Watauga County Habitat for Humanity Board of Directors

PLATINUM SPONSOR - $2500

GOLD SPONSORS - $1000

    

SILVER SPONSORS - $500

Alcova Mortgage ● Café Portofino ● Creekside Electronics ● Footsloggers ● High Country Association of Realtors ● Modern Subaru ● Piedmont Federal ● The Law Office of Robert B. Angle, Jr. ● Jerry Cook-A1 Vacuum

BRONZE SPONSORS - $250

 4FortyFour Construction ● Blue Ridge Energy ● Blue Ridge Insurance ● Bob & Wendy Hayek-In Memory of John Quick ● Bridgeman Dentistry ● Chetola Resort at Blowing Rock ● Chris & Pegge Laine ● Coley Appraisal Company ● di Santi, Watson, Capua, Wilson, & Garret, PLLC ● Edmisten Heating & Cooling ● Fidelity Bank Mortgage-Rosa Ivey ● Greene Construction ● Greenway Medical Associates ● Highlands Union Bank ● Coffey Architecture ●  Irene Sawyer ● Jane Blackburn ● Dave & Janice Koppenhaver ● LifeStore ● Lynette Orbovich & Merrill Hibbs ● Proper ● Reeves DiVenere Wright Attorneys at Law ● Laurie Phillips

● The Cardinal Food & Spirits 

Impact:Global and Local

Every One Needs a Place to Call Home

If you make a gift to Habitat for Humanity International (HfHI), your contribution is directed to the area of greatest need wherever HfHI operates worldwide.  You may be surprised to learn that as an independent local affiliate, Watauga County Habitat for Humanity does not receive operating support from HfHI.  If you currently support HfHI and want to ensure that your gift also has impact locally, you can request that any portion of your donation can be directed to our local Watauga County Habitat for Humanity affiliate.  Whether you choose to support Habitat for Humanity locally or globally, thank you for helping us achieve a world where everyone has a safe and decent place to live.

Watauga Habitat for Humanity's GreenWood Neighborhood

A Place to Build- Habitat's GreenWood Neighborhood

In the spring of 2011, we broke ground on the first of 20 homes that will be built in our  GreenWood neighborhood. Now with nearly seven years under our belts and with the first five families moved in to their new energy-efficient homes, we are proving that sustainable housing can and should be beautiful and affordable for all.

 GreenWood is an example of what’s possible in the green building industry, beautifully demonstrating that efficient, ecological building practices can ensure lasting affordability for our hardworking partner families. Through numerous community meetings about design and homeowner input sessions, we have honed our plans for the site and its structures, creating an inviting community that sits lightly on the land. Children can enjoy Harris Park and walk to neighboring Green Valley School.  There are plans in place for a Community Barn for residents to use.

Join us as we build the rest of this 20 home model neighborhood of sustainable, integrated community design.

Directions to our current project:

GreenWood: Turn left onto HWY 194 from US HWY 421 South at the Hardees red light at New Market Center. Travel approximately 5.5 miles to right on Big Hill Road. After approximately 150 yards, turn into Green Valley Elementary School. Take an immediate left into GreenWood Community and then the first left onto Woodrow Street.  We are working on the second home, 133 Woodrow St. 

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.

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.

WE NEED YOUR HELP

Help Families Build a Strong Future

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!

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:

• Vintage/Unique Items

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

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