Star is a single mother with two children. Star and her husband adopted Kiara and her brother Keelan but Star's marriage did not survive the discovery that both of them have multiple special needs.  After the loss of her business and declaring bankruptcy in the wake of her divorce, Star was starting a new career as a long term care aide. But she sustained permanent injuries in a car accident and is now unable to work. Finding affordable housing is difficult for all low-income families - finding wheel-chair accessible housing takes almost all of Star's income every month.  

With a small settlement from the car accident -- for which no fault was attributed to her -- Star wants to buy a home to take care of her children.

We want to help this family. Can you help us? 

When Star's children learned that Habitat had selected them to be a Habitat partner family, her son Keelan asked, "Mom, will this be our forever home?" Keelan uses a wheelchair and as his condition progresses, he will need more and more care. We want to give these children a "forever" home so that Star does not have to move from
place to place just to keep a roof over her children's heads.

A Hand Up, Not a Hand Out

HFH Kelowna will finance a wheel-chair accessible home for Star and her family. In partnership with Accent Homes, Star will be able to purchase a home in the Sierra Development on the Westside with a no-interest mortgage with payments geared to her income. Habitat homes are not given away. The mortgage on this home will help build more Habitat houses, which in turn will help fund more houses. Your donation to [this campaign] is a gift that will keep giving for years to come. 

Please share Star's story with your friends.  

Send them this newsletter or share this short YouTube video with them. 

This family needs our help now.

We were not able to house Star and her family at our Elk Road site because the design was not suitable for wheelchair accessibility. We want to provide a house for this family by August. Your donation would make all the difference. Follow this link to go to Star's Giving Page at Canada Helps. We'd appreciate your early response -- til the end of March, a generous private donor will match any donation up to a combined total of ten thousand dollars. Thank you. 

[Jan 2012] Habitat for Humanity Kelowna was founded twenty years ago. The vision began in December 1991 when then City Councillor Marion Bremner called a handful of people together to consider if a Habitat affiliate could come to Kelowna. She was excited about "the idea of a community getting together with a solution, as opposed to looking to government." 

Bremner later recalled her astonishment when 60 to 70 people came out to one of the first organizing meetings.

Kelowna's first logo

 One of the things we most admire about our partner families is their determination to improve their circumstances in life, both for themselves and their children. Two of our families have started their own businesses -- Mirel not only has his own mobile RV repair business, but he and his wife Dani sell eggs from free range chickens. Rochelle is a partner in L&R Mobile Wood Finishing, which specializes in cabinetry and furniture finishing.        

Statistics Canada reports that Canadians donate more than two billion hours of volunteer time every year, with British Columbians leading the country in volunteering.    Here in the Central Okanagan, with its high proportion of seniors, many active retired people form the backbone of local charitable efforts. Some of HFH Kelowna's amazing volunteers are featured in this article in Beyond 50 magazine (page 8).

Volunteer Canada offers an online quiz to help people analyze their personality traits to fit different volunteer opportunities. Volunteers interviewed by Statistics Canada "identified a number of skills they learned as part of their experience. Two thirds of the volunteers reported an increase in interpersonal skills through understanding and motivating people. Almost half cited communication skills as a learned benefit, as well as... obtaining organization and managerial skills. Other benefits reported were fundraising skills and increased knowledge about specific areas like health, women's or political issues, criminal justice or the environment."

The important thing about volunteer work is that it is, well, voluntary. The Institute for Volunteering Research reports that "some formerly totalitarian states experiencing major social change, such as Russia and the Czech Republic, are having to regenerate volunteering as an activity based on free will and choice rather than, as previously, obligatory unpaid work."