Habitat for Humanity of Santa Fe plans to build eight homes for deserving families in 2007. Eleven youth and adults from North East, PA and Ripley, NY helped Habitat meet that goal by donating nine working days in mid June.
The Habitat in Santa Fe purposely builds their houses to promote community. (Picture on left is 'before') This year they built 5 homes in one cul-de-sac. While we were there we helped with 3 of those houses. All homeowners are required to put in 500 hours of sweat equity as part of receiving a house. As they work on various houses they get to know their future neighbors. Carol, one of the homeowners that we worked with, really appreciated this community building. Already her children had friends in the neighborhood, even before the house was done. Other owners were able to teach house building skills to their neighbors too. Carol’s neighbor came and taught her how to caulk her windows one day while we were there.
The people who receive the homes do not receive a handout. They all end up with a 20-30 year interest free mortgage. The mortgage payment is never o ver one-third of their income. Most of the recipients could not be homeowners without the help of Habitat. The cost of housing in Santa Fe is very high. The average home costs $395,000. The homes are built by volunteers with donated money and materials subsidized by donations. While we were there a high school blitz was going on. They hoped to build an entire house during the month of June using primarily high school students. Over two-thirds of the home was finished by the end of the month, not quite meeting the goal. (Picture on right is "After")
Santa Fe Habitat  is to be commended for the quality of supervision they provided. All of the ‘permanent volunteers’ were very good about teaching us what to do and how to do it correctly. Our mission group roofed one house, added soffit and facia board, put on a front porch, hung doors and did a lot of interior painting. We installed a refrigerator, a dishwaher, and a washer and dryer. Painting proved to be a real challenge because of the low relative humidity in Santa Fe. Paint literally dried in 20 minutes. Small quantities had to be used so that the paint would not clump. It did make it more expedient to add the second coat though!
Our group took advantage of many different opportunities during the evenings. We ate New Mexican cuisine when we could, we traded with the Pueblo Indians on the plaza, we visited the Indian Cultural Museum and Pecos National Monument, Bandelier and the Santuario de Chimayo. Several things stood out for us. The tenacity of the Pueblo Indians to make a living in such a desolate climate, the spirituality of the Pueblo Indians and the Old Spanish Catholacism of the region. The Pueblos Indians had a prayer for everything, including prayers for the stirring stick used to make beans for their supper. At Santuario de Chimayo there is a pilgrimage every Easter weekend. People walk from as far away as Texas to come to the Chapel where they believed a miracle occurred. We often don’t think of anyone taking a pilgrimage in the U.S. but it was touching to see the devotion these people had to their beliefs.
We were blessed and amazed to meet a lot of volunteers with connections to our region of the country. We met people with Johnstown, Titusville, Butler and Erie, PA connections. We also met people from Jamestown, and Rochester, NY. All of us were working to help people have better lives and realize the dream of homeownership. We thank God for this opportunity!
We sincerely thank you for the travel grant for this mission trip. Those who participated included:
From First Presbyterian Church of Ripley, NY: Janet & Gary Skinner & Michael Sparling
From First Presbyterian Church of North East, PA: Peter & Cheryl Southard, Carol & Bryan Uglow, Kathryn & Chris Southard, Cassie Millis & Brittany Seymour. |
