Upbuilding: Winter/Spring 2025
Building the Community | The Giving Spirit | Volunteer Spotlight | Local Partners | What We’re Up To | Homeowner Tips
Greetings, Habitat Nation! The times are uncertain, as our nation’s investment in housing for those who can’t afford it, and in the people who create that housing, is ebbing while the portion of Americans who are unhoused, or spending more than they can afford to live in overcrowded or unhealthy accommodations, keeps rising. We want y’all to know that we’re committed to our mission for as long as we can keep going, which we hope, with your support, will be many, many more years. After all, you don’t get into a job like this if you’re not expecting your work to outlive you!
Building the Community
Sometimes, progress takes patience. Our “Build With Strength” home, constructed with insulating forms and low-water/carbon-trapping concrete using recycled aggregate, had to endure a pandemic and a couple of homeowner life events to finally receive its dedication and welcome a new homeowner family in November. Houses built this way are super quiet, super strong, and highly efficient, and we know that’s been a blessing through the recent storms and freezes! You’ll see more of this type of construction in our 2025 homes.
We’re also moving forward with more solarization, which began with our Kinda Tiny homes a few years back. Our most recently completed house (soon to be dedicated) sports a new solar rig, sponsored by Wells Fargo Community Giving, The Kirby Smart Family Foundation, and Classic City Rotary. Stay tuned for more solar news as further construction on Micah’s Creek gets underway.
The Giving Spirit
As a nationwide supporter of Habitat’s work, Publix Super Markets Charities are recurring sponsors of our projects here in Clarke, Oconee, and Oglethorpe counties. In December, Publix Charities provided a $40,000 grant for renovation work to prepare a currently unoccupied home for a new Habitat homeowner family. This gift brings their total contribution to Habitat housing in our area to $240,000 over the past decade!
Right now, our greatest need is for home sponsorship in our Micah’s Creek neighborhood for which construction is currently underway. If you’re a member of a professional organization, neighborhood group, religious congregation, or any other group who might be interested in pooling together to sponsor a house, let us know and we’ll help you make it happen!
Volunteer Spotlight
Volunteers from Oconee Street United Methodist Church have been a huge help to our crew, coming out every few weeks to put their shoulders to the wheel at our build, renovation, and demolition sites. Groups who schedule regular volunteer dates are important to our work, because they make it easier for us to plan and schedule, and they develop skills and institutional knowledge that help the job go faster. We salute OSUM’s commitment to providing strength, stability, and self-reliance through shelter alongside us!
If your group or business is interested in fielding regular volunteers with Habitat, whether that’s monthly or quarterly or annually, give us a holler! We’ve got a lot of building coming up, more than we’ve ever attempted, so chances are, there will be ways you can participate.
Local Partners
The most recent Building Hope Through Homes Invitational golf tournament is the third annual event sponsored by Landmark Properties of Athens. The initial tourney raised $40,000 for housing in Clarke, Oconee, and Oglethorpe. The following year they reached $75,000 and this year’s event at Chateau Elan garnered $135,000 for our mission!
It’s truly been a joy working with Landmark, and their advocacy for our work has helped us meet many new people who are hearing about what we do for the first time. And that’s really what it’s all about — not just raising necessary funds, but letting people know what they can do and how they can help. In our experience, most people want everyone to have a decent place to live, and we’re thankful we have partners who can support us in our labor toward that goal!
What We’re Up To
Normally, we’re in the molishing business rather than the demolishing business, but there happened to be some abandoned structures on the land we purchased for our new neighborhood. So of course we’re recovering the usable stuff! And there’s a good bit of it, too. We’ve salvaged windows, doors, lath, floorboards, bricks, block, curbstones, and shutters, which are being sold at our ReStores to raise funds to keep our work going.
We’re also taking trees to the sawmill if we need to remove them, rather than chucking them in a bonfire. Some of the wood will be used in neighborhood homes. What can’t be used for building will be converted to mulch, cut into firewood, or given to local woodworkers. To us, it just makes sense to reuse, repurpose, and recycle whenever we can.
Homeowner Tips
Get high on your house: Early spring is the time for a roof inspection! Winter weather can be hard on a roof, so before the heat gets here and makes things worse, check for curling, cupping, cracks, rot, and anything growing on your shingles, flashing, gutters, etc.
Move it: If you’ve been keeping firewood handy over the winter, after the last cold snap (usually around Easter here) move what’s left to a woodstack away from the house. Firewood can attract termites and other pests you don’t want near your home!
Try the thumb trick: Once freeze season is over, turn on your outdoor spigots and see if you can stop the flow of water with your thumb. If you can, the pipe may be damaged. Inspect the pipe if you can, or call a pro to do it.
Augment your support for Habitat!
You can add to your financial support for your local Habitat, at no additional cost to yourself, by taking advantage of retailers’ non-profit support programs. While these funds can’t replace donations and grants or volunteers, they do help us keep the lights on and pay for supplies, which frees up other funding to build homes!
Joe Fund Me
When you buy Jittery Joe’s coffee through our Joe Fund Me page, either as a monthly delivery or a single purchase, longtime Habitat supporter Jittery Joe’s will contribute a portion of your payment to Athens Area Habitat for Humanity. And there’s no markup — you get the same price through JoeFund.Me/AthensHabitat as you do buying direct! There’s just a little extra satisfaction to your morning mug when you know it’s helping build our community!
Kroger Community Rewards
When you link your Kroger customer loyalty card to Athens Area Habitat for Humanity, in addition to your loyalty points the Kroger Community Rewards program will donate a portion of your purchase to Athens Habitat. It’s so easy to do! So if you haven’t already, take a moment right now to visit Kroger Rewards and link you card!