This Saturday, September 16, Habitat for Humanity of Kanawha and Putnam will be holding a rare event. It's Double Dedication Day. That's right, two homes will be officially dedicated and the efforts of all volunteers will be celebrated. Just about a month ago, Shirley Cole's home was dedicated. Shirley (center) is pictured here working with Angel Young and Wendy Tipton. This Saturday, Angel,Wendy and their families take center stage as their homes and hard work are recognized.


Angel, her husband George and their children Auchea and Timothy now own a home of their own in Jubilee Heights. Let no one ever, ever doubt their committment to their dream. They volunteered 130 hours over and above the 500 required!!! George brought his buddies from work to the site and they cleared weeds and brush from the creek bank next to their home. They have plans to do some landscaping there. They also are planning improvements in the back yard. I don't think I've met more committed or hardworking souls than George and Angel Young. This was our affiliate's 106th building project and we were fortunate to have Bayer Material Science and Bayer Crop Science sponsor the house. Bayer is a well known and respected community partner and provided financial resources for this project. In addition, Bayer employees worked hundreds of volunteer hours to make this home a reality for the Young family. Bayer is very, very serious about making decent housing available in Kanawha and Putnam counties.

Wendy, her daughter Keaira and son Keshawn are thrilled with their new home. Wendy's hard work was matched only by the kid's steady patience. They are just beginning to understand that Mom's hundreds of hours on the jobsite means a new, safe and decent place for them to live and grow. The first time I met Wendy, she was applying sticky, stinky waterproofing to the foundation of a house. It was not her house but she had waterproofed nearly the entire cinderblock foundation for another Habitat family. She talked alot about plans for her children. Over and over she told me how a new home would make her kid's lives safer and happier. Wendy knew that her work on this home would be repaid by others when her home was built. Even with waterproofing tar on her face, arms and hands, Wendy's smile told me she could see a brighter tomorrow.

Wendy's home was sponsored by The Segal and Davis Family Foundation. This wonderful organization has a well-deserved reputation for supporting causes that advance the health and well-being of the children in our community. The Foundation provided financial support and volunteer workers to help Wendy build a stable homelife for herself and her children.

As is always the case, our regular volunteer crews worked like the pros they are. The Tuesday crew was terrific, the Wednesday crew was wonderful and the Thursday crew was top-notch.

Like every Habitat homeowner, Angel, George and Wendy have worked very hard for a long time for their chance to purchase a home. By any standard of measure, they have earned this opportunity. They have all made an important investment in their future.

That future has begun and everyone who helped make it happen is invited to the Young's dedication at 11:00 and the Tipton dedication at 1:00 on Saturday. The number of people who worked on these houses is huge and space won't allow a complete listing of them all but Angel, George, Wendy and the children will never forget your effort, given willingly, freely and cheerfully. You who volunteered worked hard. Wendy, Angel and George worked hard. Come out and see what hard work has accomplished. Then let's get ready to do it again, another deserving family is ready for their dream to come true.

Work continues at the site of our latest project. If you are wondering where this project is, we are building a new home at 1210 First Avenue on Charleston's West Side. We are building this home in partnership with DuPont and things are coming along very nicely. Having grown up on the West Side, I'm happy to see activity in that part of town. Apparently, the residents of that neighborhood are happy as well. The lot on which we're building has been vacant for a long time and had become overgrown and dangerous. Now that it's been cleared and a brand new home is going up, the neighbors have commented on how glad they are to see the property put to productive use.

Even though our activity congests their street and poses parking problems, many residents have gone out of their way to be helpful. If you are planning on volunteering at the First Avenue site, please consider carpooling to help ease the crowding on the street.

To get to our build site, take Kanawha Boulevard to Hunt Avenue. This is one block east of Florida Street and Cabell Field. Turn onto Hunt and go one block, then turn left onto First Avenue. Our site is on the right at the end of the block. We'll be there Tuesdays through Saturdays for the next few weeks. Sometimes, necessity will force us to change worksites with little forewarning. As always, call before you come out to confirm where we will be working. You can reach our office at 304-720-0141 for updates.

Here is a quick statistic...
Habitat for Humanity has now completed or neared completion on 400 homes in the Hurricane Katrina-affected region. Habitat is by far the region's most active and successful private sector rebuilder.
The numerous one-year retrospectives on TV and the internet demonstrate that this area is in for many more months of cleanup and many more years of rebuilding. To learn more about the work of Habitat and others who are helping, go to Habitat International's site at http://www.habitat.org/. Here you can find stories and statistics on this ongoing work.
The solution to this and other housing problems world-wide is made up of millions of individual efforts. Thanks to all who have been one of the parts of the solution!

Partnership. I think it's safe to say Habitat for Humanity is known for buidling successful partnerships to overcome the obstacles that trap good people in bad housing. It is a cornerstone in our mission. The year 2006 has seen many such partnerships make dramatic and welcome changes in the lives of deserving neighbors. The Bayer Corporation, The Segal & Davis Family Foundation and Blessed Sacrament Church have stepped forward to strengthen our community by sponsoring homes for Habitat families. Later this year, the Kanawha Valley Board of Realtors will sponsor and build a house. This demonstrates that blending the community spirit of organizations and businesses with the determination of volunteers produces some wonderful results.

On Friday, August 25, another local corporate partnership project kicked off a Habitat building project of their own. Volunteers from E.I. DuPont de Nemours and Company gathered together to begin construction of Habitat's 109th house. Led by Plant Manager Bill Menke, DuPont has provided financial support, materials and labor to build a new home for Jerry Burns. Jerry has been volunteering his time and effort to Habitat's work since December 2004. DuPont management, employees and contractors will be working through the fall months toward completion of the home later this year. Our regular Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday crews will also be on the project. DuPont has been in our community for 80 years and has a committment to supporting the community. Habitat welcomes DuPont's participation and wonderful support.

Shirley Cole thanks volunteers at the dedication of her new home.

On Saturday, August 18, some remarkable people came together to celebrate a remarkable achievement. This summer, the members of Blessed Sacrament Church of South Charleston sponsored and built a Habitat for Humanity home for Shirley Cole. It is Habitat's 108th home overall and the 24th in Jubilee Heights. Blessed Sacrament has long been one of Habitat's strongest supporters and they certainly know how to put their faith into action.

Shirley has spent hundreds of hours working on the homes of other Habitat families and has attended many hours of homeowner education classes. Beginning on July 5, Shirley worked side by side with dozens of Blessed Sacrament volunteers to make her dream into a reality. Many parishoners are members of Habitat's regular volunteer crews. Charlie Stark, John Providenti, Mike Habenshuss, Ron Baehl, Jim Sapp, Bill Frame, Bob Galloway and Evan Cebula worked on this house in addition to their other Habitat work. David Lewis of Monarch Services Corporation provided his expertise on the house's electrical systems. Teens from Charleston Catholic High School , and churches in Pennsylvania and Illinois worked together and learned the value of cooperation and service

Father Jim O'Conner of Blessed Sacrament guided and inspired the workers and proved he is pretty handy with a hammer. Mike McCready and Joan Garton spent many, many hours planning and building this wonderful home. Special thanks go out to them.

Habitat for Humanity is deeply thankful to have such a committed partner as Blessed Sacrament. The people mentioned here played an important role in this effort, but many others also worked and sweated to get the house built. The community, young and old, blended their efforts to change the life of one of their neighbors. It truly was a remarkable effort accomplished by remarkable people.

Since all of you are planning to attend the August First Friday Lunch, I decided that I'd better get specific with the times. I decided this right after someone told me I had no times listed at all.

We don't want to keep you any longer than necessary but we do want to make sure we have the time to cover all of our topics and answer all questions.We have reserved the room at the Southern Kitchen starting at 11:30AM. Go ahead and order lunch and dig in. We like to begin the discussions at 12:00. We will be done by 1:00, but any remaining questions or comments can be addressed after we turn the room back to the restaurant.

I encourage all of you to stop by the Southern Kitchen between now and Friday, August 4th to try it out. If you find something especially good, list it here as a comment to this post. Likewise if you try something not so good that we should avoid.

I think I'll go there today for lunch.

For a long time, I've been trying to get someone to take an aerial photo of Jubilee Heights for us. Sooner or later someone will. In the meantime, I've been looking at a satellite photo of Jubilee Heights on the "Google Earth" website. It is a free site and I encourage all of you to check into it if you haven't already. Google Earth is a photographic portrait of the world as seen from a satellite. You can zoom in for a close inspection or pull back to understand the bigger picture. I typed "South Charleston, WV" into the search box and Google Earth flew to a point near the mound in SC. I was able to scroll a little west and south and there was Jubilee Heights! The photo displayed was from early 2005. The foundations for House #99 (Casto) and House #100 (Peoples/Barker) are in place but no construction has started. It looks like the last house completed was Virginia Butler's. Hopefully Google will update their satellite shots soon.
For viewing Jubilee Heights, Google Earth is great. It is a fantastic tool for viewing any part of the world.

Even though we've missed a couple of monthly sessions, we are still convinced that the First Friday Lunch is a good idea. Trying to find a spot where our small attendence is welcome has been a bit of a problem. The places we've met before did all they could, but saving their meeting room for our little group has to hurt their lunch service. We've met at the Golden Corral and at Shoney's (both buffets) but didn't fill half of the room they provided. Rather than test their courtesy any more, we searched for a place that may be able to accomodate our group without hurting their lunch crowd.

So....Friday, August 4th, we'll have our First Friday Lunch at the Southern Kitchen in Kanawha City. This Charleston landmark has a meeting room on the second floor with it's own entrance from the front of the building. You don't have to wander through the restaurant , just take the steps from the parking lot. This time, it's not a buffet. You can order from the regular menu. If any of you have eaten there before, you know that this is superior home cooked food (be sure and check out the pie selection) and very reasonably priced. Those of you who haven't had the pleasure of a Southern Kitchen visit should run down there right now and check it out! Remember, it's locally owned and operated...a rarity in these days of franchised and formula eateries. This place has a real personal touch and they make you feel like family.

Considering the accellerated pace of building so far in 2006, there is a lot to plan, figure out, learn about, explain and comment on. Get there when you want but be ready for a noon start to the meeting. As usual the staff will have some short discussion to present but we want to know what you want to know. Do you have questions about streets in Jubilee Heights? Curious when we'll be building in North Hills? Wondering how the Mountaineers will do this year? We'll even give equal time to Herd fans.

Come to lunch. Learn stuff. Leave smarter.

New Online Volunteer Scheduling Coming Soon

Pretty soon everyone will be able to sign up online for volunteer spots. This won't effect the regular Tuesday - Thursday crews much, but it will help us better coordinate volunteers for special projects, Friday and Saturday construction volunteers and also ReStore volunteers.

We expect to have this system up and running by June 15th.

Shawn

First Friday Lunch Postponed

For various reasons we had to postpone this week's luncheon. Hopefully you heard this from Tiny and LaVern this week. At this writing we're not sure if we will re-schedule later this month or just wait until July. We'll let everyone know as soon as we decide.

Sorry for the late notice, but Tim has been on vacation and he usually takes care of this.

Shawn

Our First Friday Dutch Treat Construction Volunteer Luncheon will be held at the Dunbar Shoney's at 1:00. I'll be giving a presentation on the dollars and cents of the lofty ten-house goal we set for ourselves this year. If you have been wondering where we came up with the goal, you shall wonder no more if you attend tomorrow!

I hope to see your face in the crowd.

Shawn

Here's the video of today's Bayer wall raising.

Today was the kick-off day for house #106 which will be purchased by Tim and Angel Young. This house is being sponsored by Bayer Crop Science and Bayer Material Science. They are bringing out a team of volunteers each day this week to put the house under roof. After that, volunteers from Bayer will be coming out on Saturdays. Today, the floor has been installed and the walls are in the process of going up. We're thankful that the weather has held out and it has been a perfect day for this start date. We're also grateful for cooperate partners like Bayer who are making a difference in our community!

Our next First Friday Volunteer lunch will be held once more at Shoney's in Dunbar. BUT, we will be meeting at 1:00 instead of 12:00 noon. The date for this lunch is May 5, 2006 and, as always, is the first Friday of the month. We encourage you to attend! Hey, it's lunch and a little bit of construction talk, news and a few updates...we don't even have a quiz at the end.

Remember-Friday, May 5, Shoney's in Dunbar, 1:00!

Here's Amber and Milton with their daughters Mallerie and Caley at their dedication on Sunday, April 9th. They are already moved in but still working on the landscaping--volunteers may help them out some with this. The girls are thrilled to have their own bedrooms and so much more space than they had in their crowded rental where they had been living for the last 4 1/2 years. They want to thank everyone--especially the crews, for your hard work throughout the winter!

Star's dedication was a huge success as well--with a large attendance of over 70 and even a brass band. She should be moving in within the next 1-2 weeks. We'll get a picture of her up soon on the blog.

Here's a reminder that the dedication for Star Hogan's house will be this Saturday, April 15 at 12:00 noon. So many people have contributed to this house and we invite you all to attend. It's usually about a half hour event. Just think of how important a moment this will be for Star and her family. I believe Star has shown us all that she's a hard working and dedicated person. Come and celebrate this new chapter of her!

We are working hard to get Star's home in great shape for the dedication. One thing that is in our favor is that we have some old friends, Russ and Lori van Nest, here to help us. They are leading a group of great young people from Faith Community Chapel of New Castle, PA. We're really happy they are here to help us with the finishing stages of Star's house! Thanks to all of them.

Today we had our third "First Friday Dutch Treat Volunteer Lunch" at Shoney's in Dunbar. About a dozen regular crew members showed up along with Tiny, Tina Rhodes and Tim Bollinger. Tina led us through the topic of mortgage finance. I think everyone got a clear understanding of how it is structured and how it affects both the homeowner and Habitat. A lot of good, solid information was laid out. Several well-reasoned questions were asked and answered.
As promised, Tee shirts were distributed after the meeting. (Yes Rusty, I remembered.) If you are interested in Habitat business cards with your name, let me know. I'd also like to get accurate, up to date e-mail addresses for everyone. If yours has changed, again let me know.
It was a great lunch meeting. Mike McCready had some very important and late breaking news. Tina had some hard statistics on money. Tiny had a new challenge for the crews.
I had the fish.
Remember...the dedication for Amber Knuckles and Milton Haskins (house 103) is this Sunday, April 9. The dedication for Star Hogan (104) is Saturday, April 15. You're invited!
Can't wait to hear about the next meeting? It's Friday, May5 at Shoney's in Dunbar. In order to accomodate Shoney's regular noon lunch rush, what do you think about having our meeting at 1:00 instead of 12:00? Shoney's has been great to give us this space but at noon the place was jammed full. It would really help them out if we could meet an hour later. Let me know what you think. See ya there!

Two new families have recently been approved into the Habitat program. The first is Latasshia Davenport who is a single mom with 3 boys and a girl ranging in age from 10 to 15. She works full time as a home health aid and can't wait to get started working on her hours out on the jobsite. Despite her extremely busy schedule, this lady has such contagious enthusiasm! Lisa McClure and her 13 year old daught Emily have also been approved. Lisa is in school full time for nursing and takes care of her daughter who has severe disabilities. Her extremely positive attitude stands out to all who meet her.

With these two new families, we now have total of 10 families approved into the program and working on their sweat equity hours and classes. These families include: Star Hogan (House #105-the Apostles Build); Jason and Tamera Morgan (House #104); Tim and Angel Young (House #106 which will be starting the first week of May); Wendy Tipton (House #107 which should start around the end of May to early June); Jerry Burns; Sherman Bennett; Shirley Cole; Jen Spencer; Latasshia Davenport; and Lisa McClure. As you come out regularly to the job site, you will have a chance to work alongside some of these families and get to know them a little better. There are a few families who are primarily putting in hours at the ReStore because of various disabilities. We in the office have a chance to see all that each of them have gone through to get to this place of becoming homeowners--these folks are truly a remarkable group who have overcome many obstacles and are determined to achieve this lifelong dream. They are so thankful to Habitat and to the many volunteers like you who are making it possible!

Well, it seems like our work group from Chicago just left and here we have another one set to arrive. A group of 14 high schoolers and their 3 adult leaders will arrive late on
Tuesday, April 11 and work from Wednesday morning through the morning of Saturday, April 15. They are from Faith Community Chapel in New Castle, PA. Some of you may have worked with their leader, Russ van Nest back in 2003. He was here with another church from New Castle and worked on Dallas Call's house waaaaay out there on Derrick's Creek in Sissonville. He has changed churches but he hasn't changed his committment to Habitat for Humanity. It will be good to welcome Russ back and meet all of the new faces that have come to help. I get great feedback from work camps about working alongside our regular crews. They always mention how they have learned from you folks and how much they admire your year round committment. Of course, they have a few choice words about Tiny and Lavern as well. I swear, I think many of them return just to get another dose of those two characters.

Bob Peirson, our just returned Care-a-Vanner brought some photos back with him. It looks like things were well organized in spite of the extra hardships that Hurricane Katrina imposed.
I think it is inspiring to see
CON-struction instead of the all too familiar DE-struction. Notice the slab foundations. The rebuilding task is just plain immense and it looks like it will be years before the job is done. Thanks to Bob, the Care-a-Vanners and all who have stepped up to help win back the Gulf Coast. I hope today's enthusiasm will be carried forth until the displaced residents of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama can go home. The same thoughts hold true for those victims in Flodida who also

suffered heavy losses in last year's record shattering hurricane season. I am very, very glad that we don't have to worry about hurricanes in West Virginia.

Some of you may know that a regular Tuesday crew member, Bob Peirson, has been working for a Habitat affiliate in Thibodaux, Louisiana. Today we got an Email from Bob with some of his thoughts on working in the devastated Gulf region. Bob writes:

"This is Bob Peirson of the Tuesday crew. I participated in a two week Care-a-Van build with Bayou Area HfH in Thibodaux, La. They have a development of 56 houses, of which the first 12 are under construction.
These houses are Operation Home Delivery homes. Unfortunately, the OHD houses only amounted to 'frame panels'. That was it. So in the end, these only saved the local affiliate about $1200 a house.
All the homes are 1000 sq ft three bedroom, one bath homes. There are 4 basic designs.
We camped on site, which was nice. It was so handy to walk to 'work'. They have full hookups for about 12 RV's. The RV people number about 20. There are also three houses used as dorms for various groups, including about 12 AmeriCorps volunteers. The rest of the volunteers are from other groups, such as college or high school kids.
A pavilion at one corner of the development is the focal point for the morning devotionals and meeting, breaks and lunch.
Managementis a bit 'stretched'. One manager guides the 50+ people on site each day. In the end, the actual management gravitates to a few volunteers knowledgeable in construction.
Since there so many houses under construction at one time, one can find any aspect of house building somewhere on this site.
Construction here is 'on a slab'. Contractors do the plumbing and concrete work, then the electrical. Volunteers do the rest, except the dry wall finishing.
The land here is flat, cut by bayous. They measure distance above sea level in inches.
We made a lot of progress these two weeks and the affiliate took good care of us."

Thanks for the update and hard work, Bob. It's good to have you home!

Our First Friday Dutch Treat Lunch is scheduled for Friday, April 7. This time it will be held at Shoney's in Dunbar. Shoney's has been happy to offer us their meeting/dining room for our monthly lunch. Our previous site needed us to committ to a definite number of attendees. We just weren't ready to provide a guaranteed attendance. We have the room from 11:30 until 1:00 so we'll have time to eat and discuss issues as usual. Again, I encourage all of you to come join us. I also hope that you'll help us spread the word about the change in location. We intend to hand out volunteer T-shirts at the meeting so try to be there!

One more note about next week's visitors. They have a web site that is great. Check it out at

http://www.montini.org .

I thank Wendy Tipton for the very kind and inspiring comment she left on our blog. I think everyone of us, volunteers, donors, homeowners and staff, believes what she says makes this all worthwhile.

Have a good weekend!

Just a reminder that the Montini High School youth group will be arriving on Saturday March 25. Montini High is in the Chicago area. Jim Segredo will be leading the group. These young people have decided they want to spend their spring break doing something constructive and meaningful. They will be here for a week doing any and all jobs needed. The term "spring break" conjures up images of parties but these kids are travelling here at their own expense to help our families become homeowners.
These work camps always amaze me. We've met some great kids who prove that this generation is one to be proud of. Despite all the bad impressions in the papers and on TV, these kids show us that there are many, many wonderful young people in our country. It's a joy to welcome them.
I hope all of our regular volunteers will be there to show them the ropes and share some West Virginia hospitality with the Montini students. I extend a special invitation to all of the partner families to make an appearance at the job site and give these kids a pat on the back.

At our First Friday lunches, lots of questions and ideas are discussed. One that I think has real possibilities is business cards for our regular volunteers. I know you folks talk to all sorts of people about Habitat's work. Do these people ever ask "How can I get involved?". If they do, it means that you are a good ambassador for Habitat for Humanity. It also means that you need information in a convenient form to pass along to the prospective volunteer. Would a business card with our name, address, phone, website and your name do the trick? For someone truly interested, this would help them easily contact the Habitat office. If you think you'd like a few of these cards, post a reply on this site or e-mail me at tim@habitatwv.org . We need to recruit new volunteers year round and this might just help. I'm always looking for new volunteers to join our 3 great crews and I hope this will help each of you to recruit a few as well.

New Construction Calendar

The new construction calendar is now posted. Click Here to download it.

You'll notice that we have changed it quite extensively to reflect the reality of our situation and now includes the South Park house as one of the ten we will build this year.

The next house to start will now be on May 2. That house will be put under roof by Bayer - a joint effort between two of its divisions: Crop Science and MaterialScience. They have sponsored the entire house but will have its employees onsite primarily the first week.

Of course we have plenty to keep us busy until then don't we?

Sorry for being tardy with this blog update. I am trying to make this one of my main priorities.
Habitat's second First Friday Dutch Treat lunch was held on Monday, March 6 at the Golden Corral in Cross Lanes. I have to admit, the food is a whole lot better than I first expected. The variety on the lunch buffet runs the gamut from terrific pot roast to hamburgers to beans and cornbread. Many, many more choices are available including salads and desserts. It's also "all you can eat". Again, I encourage all of you to attend. One reason is that if we don't get more people for our meetings, they'll stop letting us use their meeting room for free. Another reason is that a whole bunch of good and useful information is shared at these meetings.
This past meeting's highlight was a talk from our Volunteer Coordinator, Tina Rhodes. She had some good information about what makes a person or family a good candidate for a Habitat home. She spoke of the qualifications to enter the program and the requirements once they are accepted. I've heard that many volunteers wonder about the family selection process. I am sure everyone there came away with a much better understanding of the process. One reason I'm sure of this is because of the large number of excellent questions asked of Tina. The volunteer audience was obviously interested in this topic. So come on down to our next meeting on April 7. It's cheap, it's filling, it's interesting, it's informative and it's fun. See ya there! - Tim

The Apostle's Build has begun! Today, March 1 marked the beginning of construction activity for Star Hogan's new home. Over the next seven weeks, we'll see volunteers from 12 local churches make her dream a reality. As you can see, Star is already working on building the floor. This is always an exciting time for a homeowner-to-be. Star has worked on the homes of many other Habitat families and now, it's her turn. If all goes well and the weather cooperates, we hope to finish Star's home by Easter. That's a fitting way to celebrate this wonderful time of year.

Hello again to all of our volunteers. Beginning this Wednesday, March 1, you will see increased activity on Star Hogan's house (House # 105). Twelve local churches have banded together to financially sponsor and build this house in an effort of community cooperation. Members of these churches will blend together into a workforce rather than work only with their own church group. A real spirit of cooperation is driving this effort. They all share in the determination to raise this house as a safe and decent place for Star to raise her family.
As much determination as they have, they may need a little help from time to time. We might have some of our regular volunteers help out on this build. Many of these new volunteers may need some advice on the right way to get things done. I can't think of better, more knowledgeable or dedicated teachers than Tiny, Lavern and our Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday crew members.

Our next First Friday Dutch Treat Lunch will be this Friday, March 3 at Golden Corral in Cross Lanes. Shawn has a few topics to cover and Tiny will again talk about construction issues. Have you ever wondered how families are chosen to the program? Tina will talk about what Habitat looks for in a partner family. The first meeting was considered interesting and informative by those who attended. We hope to get many more volunteers for our meeting this Friday so consider this a personal invitation to each of you!

Our affiliate has 3 visiting workcamps signed up for 2006. Here is a list of their names and the dates of their visit:

Montini Catholic High School (Chicago, IL) March 27 - 31
Faith Community Chapel (Western PA) April 11 - 15
St. Michael's Youth Group (Chicago, IL) June 12 - 16

The Faith Community Chapel group is led by Russ van Nest. Russ has visited us several times in the past. This will be his first trip here in 3 years
I'm sure many of you recognize St. Michael's as a faithful partner of HFH. I believe this is their 7th or 8th trip to Charleston in a row.
This will be the first visit for Montini Catholic High School. They learned of us from St. Michael's and Rose Koch.
I hope they realize how much we appreciate them. Gathering a bunch of teenagers and taking them on an 8 hour drive to help us build is not an easy task. Let's make sure they feel welcome when they visit!

Lavern Update

Just a note to let everyone know that Lavern is doing fine. We are expecting him to back at work on Tuesday, February 21. He is supposed to be on light duty, so help us watch out for him and make sure he doesn't overdo it.

I hope everyone managed to survive the snow this past weekend. There were 4+ inches in my front yard but none on the street. It sounds like NYC got buried. Another reason to be glad we live here in good old West Virginia!
I know that all of the regular crews worked extra hard last week to help our visitor, Seth, to get a roof on House 104. Thanks again for stepping up to the challenge. Seth, as you know by now, is an inspired and motivated character. If you'd like to learn more about what he's doing and why he's doing it, go to www.leapoffaithroofing on the internet.
I got to help out a little on the roof work this past Friday. I learned alot from Tiny, Bob Scholl, Ron Claar and Bob Pierson. Bob Pierson will be vising Thibadeaux, LA soon with a group of Care-a-Vanners to help that devastated area.
Ruel Elliott put in an extra day's volunteer work on Saturday past at House 103. He and some other members of Forrest Burdette United Methodist did some painting. Forrest Burdette has been a great partner with Habitat in so many ways. They have a group out to work on the second Saturday of every month. We are extremely fortunate to be the beneficiaries of their dedication and support.
We always appreciate the amazing committment of our Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday crews...putting up with Tiny and Lavern ain't easy!

New Calendar is Now Online

The updated Construction Calendar (version 2-9-2006) is now available. Click here to download it.

Our first "First Friday Dutch Treat Volunteer Lunch" was held today at Golden Corral in Cross Lanes. Twelve volunteers attended and had a great time of fellowship and information. As requested by some of those in attendance, here is the Power Point presentation from today.

We hope more folks can make it to next month's meeting. It will be on March 3 at Golden Corral.

Please note that our new construction calendar is online now. It can be found at http://habitatwv.org/kanawha/calendar.pdf. The current version is 2.1.06. It will be updated as changes make it necessary.

The calendar is a pdf file and requires Adobe Acrobat Reader to view or print. If you do not have it you can download it for free from Adobe.com.

Just a reminder that our first ever "First Friday Dutch Treat Construction Lunch" is coming up on February 3. It will be held at the Golden Corral in Cross Lanes. This will be your opportunity to hear plans and proposals about Habitat home building projects. Your input is welcomed! We intend to continue with a meeting on the first Friday of each month so there is no confusion as to days or dates. This has the potential to be a great tool for us and you should try to attend if at all possible.