Habitat KC Kicks off 30th Year

Today was an amazing day at work - a day where I got to feel like all the office dysfunction is doing some real good in the community. We had our Build Season Kick-off today, an annual event to mark the beginning the new year's activities and introduce the partner families to the rest of the Habitat KC community. For whatever reason, this year we had a great turnout - staff, Board members, volunteers, previous family partners, and all of this year's families were able to be there. We even had folks from the city council, our state representative, and the president from the local neighborhood association there to say a few words. A few of the families spoke about how they got to this point, what the homeowner process has been like for them so far, etc. and it was one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. People of all races, ages, faith backgrounds, etc mixed and mingled and got to know each other's stories in a way I haven't seen outside of of a house blessing ceremony. Those are the events we do to give a family the keys to their new home when the house is done being built, but they usually only involve one family and their one house - this was so much more than that! As this is Habitat Kansas City's 30th Anniversary, we wanted this event to be a bit bigger than it's been in the past. We've tried to promote it more thru email, on Facebook, etc. and it probably didn't hurt anything that we got a story on the news the other day. :) It was just nice to have a good turn out, appreciation from various sides of our program, and really feel like we're doing good work, little by little, building up our community one family at a time. If you haven't volunteered with Habitat before, I STRONGLY recommend it. You can do a search for your local affiliate from the Habitat for Humanity Internationl website by just entering your zip code. And don't forget to do your home improvement shopping at ReStore!