Last Saturday, with a fresh morning breeze and sunshine, numerous volunteers showed up to participate in building a group of Habitat for Humanity houses in an east Pasco community. Each house was in a different phase of development – from foundation to finishing. On this particular Saturday, members of Anderson Law took a break from attorney work and car accidents and enjoyed performing different tasks – some of us painted and some of us worked with the installation of sheetrock.

Habitat

If you haven’t volunteered for Habitat for Humanity yet, and you live in Kennewick, Pasco, or Richland, you may want to consider signing up for a Tri-Cities project. If you have a skill set to share (or would like to learn a new one), this is a great place to contribute some of your time. The only thing you need in order to volunteer is your willingness to help.

Habitat for Humanity builds simple, decent houses for low-income families. The Habitat for Humanity houses are modestly sized, but large enough for the homeowner family’s needs and they keep construction and maintenance costs to a minimum. Habitat for Humanity uses locally available building materials and lends no-profit, no-interest loans to its beneficiary families.

Each family that is accepted for a house (a partner family) must also contribute a certain amount of volunteer hours. Their house payments contribute to the building of other houses. Habitat for Humanity provides the tools and materials. The labor of building the houses is done by volunteers. Each house has a crew leader who oversees and assists with the tasks at hand. The crew leaders also maintain a culture of safety on these worksites. No falling into crawlspaces or throwing hammers allowed.

Habitat for Humanity has a full range of volunteers, high school and college students, churches, community groups, retired seniors, individuals, etc. All who wish to volunteer to work are welcome! It’s a great collaboration! What better results in helping resolve the global housing crisis than to help families in need obtain decent, affordable shelter?

As a hallmark of Habitat for Humanity, “decent, stable housing provides more than just a roof over someone’s head. It provides stability for families and children, a sense of dignity and pride, health, physical safety and security and increases educational and job prospects.” They contend the percentage of people without access to decent, stable housing is rising and increasing the housing supply across
the globe is essential.

We at Anderson Law thought this was a great opportunity to serve and will be volunteering again! For information about volunteering for Habitat for Humanity call the Volunteer Coordinator at (509) 943-5555 or email volunteer@habitat-tcp.org.
 – Diane Austin, Litigation Paralegal


0 Comments

Leave a Reply