In the news:
May 2010:
Habitat and Thrivent Builds break ground for two new homes
OSCEOLA/WEBSTER – Wild Rivers Habitat for Humanity held two groundbreaking ceremonies over the last two weekends. At these joyful events, the symbolic start of building a home for a family who needs one, God’s guidance and blessing is asked for the workers, the families, and the home that will be built. If you would like to join in and help build these homes, or if you would like to support this work financially, contact WRHFH at PO Box 136, Luck, WI 54853, or call 715-472-6080.
The Webster home is being built through the Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity partnership this year. Matt Bobick and OJ Aune of Thrivent Financial attended and brought refreshments to share. Bobick spoke, sharing how in these times of troubling news about financial companies, Thrivent Financial, a nonprofit Fortune 500 company, is doing a lot of good. The Webster home is one of 182 homes in 37 states that is part of the Thrivent Builds project this year. Thrivent has committed $15 million for 2010 toward building these homes. Throughout the four-year alliance, 2,000 homes have been built, with more on the way. To volunteer or for more information, visit www.thriventbuilds.com. - submitted
Shirley Schoenberger and Breanna Prouty, the Habitat partner family, prepare to break ground where their new home will be built in Osceola, along with Habitat volunteers Becky Sunde, Pastor David Sollitt, and Eric Kube, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity.
The Tracey family breaks ground for their new home in
Webster. Participating were (L to R) Tom Stusek, Webster Village President, with Jennifer Tracey, Eric Kube of HFH, Haven Tracey holding son Hyatt, and Matthew Bobick of Thrivent Financial. In front are Ava and Kyla Tracey.
Shanty Town event raises funds, awareness about homelessness
BALSAM LAKE – Living on a school bus isn’t all bad, according to Wayne Whitwam, principal at Unity elementary. Whitwam, along with others, spoke at the Shanty Town event held at Unity May 8 and 9, jointly hosted by the Salvation Army and Wild Rivers Habitat for Humanity. Whitwam talked about being homeless as a child as part of an evening program after participants in the event built their shanties and were served a soup supper. Whitwam said he hadn’t thought of
himself as being homeless until he saw the definition as an adult. There wasn’t a trace of self-pity as he told his story. His parents had a loving marriage, then and now. He spoke admiringly of his father, who, he said “broke the cycle of alcoholism and abuse” that was active in his father’s family of origin. They hadn’t been able to break the cycle of poverty, however. Whitwam figured their family had moved 17 times by the time he was 17 years old – if you counted times they had moved the bus from one location to another. His parents valued education highly, always getting him and his siblings registered in school after each of the many moves, once as late as May, when he admitted thinking it was crazy to have to register so late in the year.
John Collins, Amery, also told his story at the event. Collins had a home and a business in the Minneapolis area some years ago and back then had been a Habitat volunteer. Collins told the story of how he had lost his business and their home, become homeless, until last year they were selected to be Habitat’s partner family. Eric Kube, executive director of Habitat for Humanity, explained how the Habitat program works.
Duana Bremer, executive director of the Salvation Army, gave a presentation on the factors that cause homelessness and poverty housing in our area, including low wages and high building costs. She said the Kettle Campaign usually brings in about $70,000 a year, which is then disbursed to people from our community experiencing crisis with rent, utilities, transportation, or medication. Shirley Schoenberger, shelter manager of the Serenity House, said the shelter had housed 130 people from our community, but had turned away 120, due to a lack of space.
Finally, people attending were encouraged to come up with ideas on how they might help combat homelessness. Many ideas were shouted out and recorded, such as cooking a meal or running a food drive for Serenity House, ringing a bell for the kettle campaign, working on a build for Habitat for Humanity, or working at a food pantry. Then “Call to Action” cards were handed out and people committed to take action on one project.
April 2010:
HFH hires Executive Director; family selected for build in Osceola
LUCK –Eric Kube, 38, of Amery, last week accepted the
position of part time executive director of Wild Rivers Habitat for Humanity. Kube is no stranger to WRHFH, as he was president of the Polk County chapter of the affiliate last year before the chapter merged with the affiliate into one group. WRHFH is thrilled to have Kube on board, who has many years of experience in the building trades, in running a business, and in working with faith-based housing ministries.
Kube has worked with Habitat for Humanity for over 20 years in Polk and Burnett Counties, in the Twin Cities, and in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He also has worked extensively with the Appalachia Service Project. ASP is an organization affiliated with the Methodist Church which performs emergency home repair for needy families in the Appalachian Mountains in Virginia. Kube has worked there for 20 years for at least a week each year. One summer he served as the construction coordinator over many projects. “I drove 8,000 miles in 8 weeks that summer,” Kube said.
Kube owned and ran a cabinet-making business in Amery, where he lives, for 11 years until 2009. Kube also had been employed as a project manager for three years building Applebees and other restaurants.
“Our affiliate has grown significantly,” said WRHFH president Pastor Cindy Glocke. “We now need someone on staff to manage the many aspects of running our organization that is both a construction company and a mortgage holder. We are so fortunate to have someone with Eric’s talents, skills and passion to help us continue building homes for and with families who need them.”
Jeff Butler, who was the construction manager for WRHFH for many years through 2008, has been hired to fill that role once again. “Jerry Livingston did a fantastic job for us last year,” said Glocke. “But he’s just too busy to do it again this year. We’re very lucky Jeff was available again.”
Shirley Schoenberger and her 11-year-old daughter Breanna Prouty have been selected as the partner family for the home that will be built by them and WRHFH this summer. “I had accepted the fact that I would never own a home again,” said Schoenberger. “I had to make my peace with that in order to make choices for our future. And then we were selected. I said, wait a second. How did this happen?”
Schoenberger said one of the hardest things for her about not having a home has been that Breanna, who is in sixth grade, has already attended four different schools. “Every couple of years it was just time to go, for one reason or another,” she said. She said it was amazing to walk on the ground where the home will be built, to know she will be able experience the pride of owning a home again, where she will be able to plant flowers, and where Breanna will have room to practice dance and to be a little noisy if she wants to. “We have to be so quiet in this apartment, you hear everything,” said Schoenberger. “Sometimes I hear my neighbor snoring. Being in our own home again will be a dream come true.”
Sign up for Shantytown and a chance to win an iPod Touch
WRHFH and the Salvation Army are hosting an overnight Shanty Town fundraising event at Unity School on May 8 and 9. Interested people or groups may now sign up for this fun, educational and inspirational event which will also raise funds for families in need. It is open to anyone but is a great opportunity for youth groups to work together to help combat homelessness. Participants will be asked to collect a minimum of $25 in pledges. An iPod Touch will be awarded to the person who raises the most funds.
March 2010:
Habitat home will be start of new life for Danbury family
Family selected for home funded by Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity, a partnership that will change the lives of 181 families this year
LUCK – This year will mark the beginning of a new life for the Haven family. They recently learned they have been selected to build a Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity home in Webster. Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity is a multi-year, multi-million dollar partnership between Habitat for Humanity International and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. This initiative will provide 65 percent of the construction costs of the Haven home. Area Thrivent chapters and Lutheran congregations will raise an additional 10 percent while Wild Rivers Habitat for Humanity will fund the remaining 25 percent, as well as the raising funds for a second home to be built in Osceola this year.
Because the need for affordable housing is so great, the desire to partner with Habitat for Humanity to build a home is also great. Families are chosen based on their need for decent housing, their ability to repay a no-profit, zero-interest mortgage and their willingness to help build their home or other Habitat for Humanity homes. Because partnering with Habitat is a life-changing experience, selected families are often thrilled when told the good news.
“We are chomping at the bit to get started working on our new home,” said Haven Tracey. “It will be so great for our family to have enough room and our own yard.” The Tracey family will put in a minimum of 300 hours of “sweat equity,” building their home.
Haven and Jennifer Tracey and their three children are now living in a one-bedroom home in Danbury. “We turned the mudroom into a living room,” Haven laughed, “and the living room into our bedroom. The two girls (Kyla, 3 years, and Ava, 2) get the bedroom and Hyatt stays with us.” Jennifer adds, “And the laundry is in the kitchen!”
Haven and Jenny were both starting out with promising careers at the time they met, but when Kyla came along, everything changed. Jennifer was quite sick when she was carrying her, and lost so much time at work she was let go. When Kyla was born, they discovered she had a faulty heart valve. She had heart valve replacement surgery when she was 6 weeks old, and will need to have the valve replaced again periodically as she grows. She was in the University of Minnesota hospital for three months when she was born. Jennifer and Haven were there with her most of the time.
Haven and Jen moved to the area a couple of years ago to be near Jen’s parents. Haven found a job with a local contractor, but there wasn’t much work. He also worked at a canoe rental place. Recently he got his certificate for substitute teaching and has been doing that. Jen is looking for work after having their third child, Hyatt, in December.
Their new home will be the result of a partnership between Habitat for Humanity International and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. Called Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity, this partnership has resulted in more than 2,000 decent, affordable homes across the country and around the world since 2005. Thanks to its 2.6 million members who own financial products with the organization, Thrivent Financial for Lutherans is able to contribute to the improvement of communities like Webster. The Thrivent Builds partnership also engages volunteers—members of Thrivent Financial, members of area Lutheran churches and members of the community at large—to work alongside the partner families to build these home. To learn more, visit www.thriventbuilds.com.
While WRHFH will build one home in partnership with Thrivent Builds this year, (as well as another that is not funded by Thrivent) other Habitat affiliates in 37 states will build hundreds more homes for a total of up to 181 Thrivent Builds homes in 2010. These partner families will all experience the pride of home ownership by year’sDecember, 2009
Wild Rivers Habitat for Humanity celebrates its contribution to reaching 2,000-home milestone of
$125 million alliance
Thrivent announces a new commitment to affordable housing in 2010 – home to be built in Burnett County
LUCK – Minneapolis. A partnership between Habitat for Humanity International and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans, called Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity, has resulted in 2,000 homes for families in just four years. WRHFH’s recently completed Amery home was part of that effort.
At the December 4th event, Thrivent Financial announced a 2010 commitment of $15 million to Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity and its homebuilding program, continuing its support of Habitat’s mission for a fifth year. This funding will make the construction of 181 additional homes in 37 states possible. WRHFH has received word that it has been awarded $56,550 for the construction of another Thrivent Builds home in 2010, this time to be built in Burnett County.
“The Thrivent Builds partnership has helped us increase the number of families served in our community,” said Pastor Cindy Glocke, president of the board of WRHFH. “We were able to build two homes this year instead of one. We are so grateful for Thrivent’s support of our efforts to provide decent, affordable homes in partnership with families in need.”
While Thrivent Financial provided at least 65 percent of the funding for each of the 2,000 homes, local volunteers—many of them Thrivent members and members of area Lutheran congregations—assisted with construction and helped raise additional funds.
The four-year Thrivent Builds alliance was announced in September, 2005 and has helped construct approximately six percent of Habitat homes built in the United States from 2006 through 2009. Ongoing in 2010, the Thrivent Builds partnership continues to ensure Thrivent Financial as one of the largest non-government supporters of Habitat for Humanity International.
For more information about the Thrivent Builds partnership, please go to www.thriventbuilds.com.