Giving back to the community

For 15 years the Graham affiliate of Habitat for Humanity has provided one house a year to a family in the community and Saturday they continued making the final touches on their fifteenth house.

The program operates through volunteer labor and tax-deductible donations of money and materials which allow the organization to build and rehabilitate homes with the help of a partner family, which this year was the family of Kristy Garvin. The house at 1307 Blewett St. has been under construction since April 2019 with a completion date of late July. Executive Director Jimmy Guinn said he is thankful for the difference the organization has been able to make for families in Graham.

“I remember our board and me talking to my wife initially at our first orientation where we had all these people applying, but we could only build one house and just the discouragement that I’m not really sure if just one house is making a difference,” he said. “But, now as we look back and there are 15 different families represented with several children in each family. As a matter of fact, I have watched the children in the first house graduate through high school now and they are out on their own.”

Garvin said the feeling was surreal seeing her home almost completed and said the organization choosing her was a shock.

“They actually scared me at first when they called me first thing in the day and said, ‘We need to come see you,’” she said. “And I was really nervous about it, but when they told me I was excited.”

Organization history

Habitat for Humanity International was founded in 1976 by Millard and Linda Fuller as a non-profit Christian housing ministry dedicated to eliminate substandard housing and homelessness worldwide.

“Most people think Habitat is a government program because there happened to be someone from Georgia that was president in 1976, Jimmy Carter, and actually his wife grew up really close to Augustus, Georgia,” Guinn said. “So, that’s one of the biggest misconceptions about Habitat, is they think it is some kind of government housing organization, but it is first and foremost a Christian housing ministry.”

Guinn said the international organization has now built over 800,000 houses across the world and even though the Graham organization has provided 15 houses to the number, it is a large contribution for such a small community.

“This is going to be our fifteenth house which we are really proud of and God has really blessed us,” he said. “We are one of the most productive small affiliates in the Southwest by being able to build a house a year in a town the size of 10,000. Most Habitat affiliates have at least 50,000 population base, so it’s been a blessing, like Graham does with a lot of other projects, to see them come together churches in this instance and our civic groups and our companies to work together to get one house built for these 15 years.”

For the rest of the story, see the Wednesday, July 3 edition of The Graham Leader.