Director's Note
April, 2013

Greetings!

  

Dear Habitat Friends,

 

What's your gift? What do you enjoy bringing to Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod to help serve our mission of working in partnership with families in need to build homes, hope, lives, and community on Cape Cod? Where might your help be most needed this year, and when?           

  

For this issue of our e-newsletter, we offer an overview of our plan of activity for all of 2013. There is no plainer way to say - we need you! And at the end of 2013, we want you to be able to say, "I helped build it!"   

  

You Helped Build it! - Project completions

 

By late Spring we will have deeded all five homes commenced in 2012 to their hardworking purchases. 13 Yellow Brick Rd. in Truro is the only home still in construction.  

 

 

Help Build it! - Home building projects by Town 

 

A note that applies to all: Exact start dates are not yet available for any build. Generally we will schedule volunteer kick-offs to take place 2 - 4 weeks in advance of the wall raising, at which time the schedule will be posted and we will be actively signing up volunteers. Meanwhile please feel free to contact Dawn Walnut at 508 362 3559  x16 or [email protected] if you are interested in a team opportunity, for additional info, or to offer your assistance.

 

6 & 9 Park Place - Mashpee: These two 3-bedroom ranch style homes in Mashpee are now expected to be the first wall raisings of our 2013 season ... sometime in June and July. Barry Clickstein will be serving as house leader with Dot Hannon as volunteer coordinator. Big thanks to the Town for the land donations, as well as funding support through a Community Preservation Act grant. We are actively seeking additional private funding from the community & and have some grant applications under consideration as well.   

 

72 Ginger Lane - Centerville: We will be building a 3-bedroom ranch on this privately donated parcel. Purchaser applications are under review by our family selection volunteers now. Expected wall raising date is mid/late July. We thank the Town of Barnstable for funding support through a Community Preservation Act grant. It's been a long time since we have built in Barnstable (Danvers Way was completed in 2005!) We would welcome your help in our outreach to our former contributors and volunteers and please be in touch with us if you can help us raise new friends and supporters for this build.   


31 Namskaket Rd. - Orleans (our new cul-de-sac to be named "Bevan Way): 5 (FIVE!) wall raisings to take place in between July and September. Our Faith Relations Committee has been successfully raising a sponsorship for one Apostles' Build house; one house will be a Women Build; and during the last week of September the professionals of the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Cape Cod (HB&RACC) will be blitzing a home in one week, with a tightly organized teams of professionals. There will be plenty of opportunity on all the non-blitz houses for great community involvement. Joanne Broderick will be serving as volunteer coordinator, and we will expect to have Bob Ryley or Desmond on the ground at all time as site supervisor working with a corps of crew leaders for each day's work. The grass-roots, neighbor to neighbor support for this build has been huge already - and we are thankful to the many churches, individuals, and businesses who have contributed or pledged to donate. The Town of Orleans generously contributed Community Preservation funds to acquire this beautiful site, plus some of the soft costs. We have a major Federal Home Loan Bank of Boston grant, sponsored by Cape Cod Five, and some construction financing by the Five as well. We thank the Orleans Friends of Affordable Housing for their early support and look forward to working with the Orleans Community Partnership as part of our plan to make this 5-house build a fabulous, months-long, community building event. 

 

55 A & B Glenwood Ave. - Falmouth:

Due to the Town's plan to install a water main down this street, our projected wall raising for these two attached homes (1-bedroom and 3-bedroom) has been moved to early fall. We are delighted that Upper Cape Chapter Chair Bob Leary has stepped forward to serve as the volunteer site-leader for these homes. This land was donated by the Town and we also thank the people of Falmouth for their funding support with a Community Preservation Act Grant. The Behren's Fund of St. Barnabas has also been an early generous donor to make these homes possible. We are also truly delighted that a community-based support-raising group, composed of faith and civic leaders, is in motion to help us make this a true community-building event in Falmouth - and to help us raise funds and volunteers.                                                          

 

 

Help Build it! - Special Initiatives

 

Peter's House - Habitat crews will be helping to sidewall shingle this home in Yarmouth, and later we will also help with landscaping. Peter's House will be a group home run by Seven Hills Foundation, to offer programming, support, and services to individuals with disabilities and life challenges. The home will support five women currently living in a group home in Hyannis that lacks the handicapped accommodations they desperately need. The project is the brainchild of longtime Habitat volunteer Ralph Specht and his wife, Ann, who have a son with special needs. By participating in the build, Ralph, Ann, and Habitat hope to raise awareness about the need for homes like these.  

 

Disaster Relief Trip - for four of the last seven years, Habitat and a group from Northside Methodist Church have sent a group to disaster-affected areas of the country to help with rebuilding. This year's trip will help low-income residents of Atlantic City, NJ, who were affected by Superstorm Sandy in November, and is scheduled for May 5th through May 11th, with the 6th-10th as full work days. We will be working with the Fuller Center for Housing. 

 

                                                            

Help Build it! - Raising Funds

 

The Last Gasp - we have about 10 committed riders so far for this September 15, 60 mile fundraising ride from Sandwich to Provincetown. In fact, Yours Truly is in training, Frank Almeida from our Board will be riding, as well as Land Acquisition Director Leedara Zola. . .  and the list grows daily. If this is your idea of fun, too - I hope you will consider joining us! If you have missed the previous announcement, please just contact Wendy or Dawn and we can fill you in or send off an info packet.  

 

Kayak raffle - Thanks to Bill Witmer and Pat Taylor, the kayak is already back on tour, up and down Cape Cod. This is a cherished traditional and seriously successful annual fundraiser for Habitat - so our gratitude to Pat and Bill who build a one-of-a-kind kayak each year... to all who help sell tickets - and to those who buy 'em! If you are interested in selling raffle tickets - and our ticket sellers always say this is a truly fun summer job - please contact Dawn Walnut at 508-362-3559 ex. 16 or [email protected]. Next stop for the Kayak: Cape Cod Mall - May 10th from noon to 4:00. Tickets are only $2.00.


ReStore - Open Wed - Sat, 9 - 5 at 28 Whites Path in So. Yarmouth, 508 394 6400, ReStore has hit its stride in recycling usable furniture and building supplies to raise funds to support our homebuilding program. There are four great ways you can support the success of ReStore: Volunteer - for a regular shift, or to be on-call (sales, pricing, cashier, loading-unloading-prepping-placing), Shop, Donate, Spread the word!  
We now have the full building under lease, and will commence remodeling (expanding retail space from approximately $5,000 sq. ft. to approximately 10,000 sq. ft.) as soon as we have secured our building permit.

Cars For Homes - another great recycling/fundraising initiative. Just call 1-877-277-4344 or go to www.CarsforHomes.com to donate your car, trailer, or boat. If your donation is from Cape Cod - we automatically receive the proceeds. If you donate from off-Cape but designate Cape Cod for your donation, that will also guarantee our receiving the benefit. Here we can seriously use your help in spreading the word! We are lagging behind other affiliates in Massachusetts in this area of fundraising. Cars for Homes makes it EASY to make this kind of donation, will provide the documentation you need for a tax deduction, and will be happy to explain to you how that part of it works. Questions? Call our office at 508-362-3559 ex. 16 and speak with Wendy Cullinan.

 

Spring Appeal & Carpenter's Club - yes, we raise money all kinds of ways, but donations from individuals, faith organizations and local businesses remains vital to our being able to actually fulfill all the opportunities we have to build homes in partnership with local families in situations of critical housing need. I offer special gratitude to

all our annual, semi-annual, and monthly givers, and our Carpenter's Club members. Our Spring Appeal will be mailed out soon - and I hope that with the activity described above, you will feel motivated to send in a donation in the amount that gives you the joy of giving extra help to making some very special, and often very desperate, dreams come true. (We have completed a major data base changeover in the last year, so if our mailing misses you - feel free to give a call!).

 

 

Celebrating 25 Years of Building Homes, Changing Lives, Preserving Community on Cape Cod! 

25th Anniversary Gala- We're having a party, and, as with all things Habitat, we have wonderful teams of volunteers already at work with staffer Wendy Cullinan to Help Plan it! We will email our "'Save the Date" soon - but it will be in October.This season we will be raising the walls on our 90th volunteer-built home on Cape Cod. Look what we have done together! More to do? Oh, yes - but much to celebrate.
                                  

   

It's all thanks to you!  

That's a lot of what we will be doing this year - and it is a lot. As, always, these projects and plans have been made possible by scores of volunteers doing high volume and high quality work- in construction, on committees, as leaders, or in specialized roles - as well as our small but mighty staff. So on behalf of Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod, it is my great privilege to close this e-letter by expressing to you all our deep gratitude for your interest, commitment, dedication and hard work - work that does so much to lift up the circumstances of local families. Everyone deserves a decent home on terms they can afford to pay. Thank you for being part of a great solution.         

 

In partnership,

Vicki

Victoria Goldsmith

Executive Director

Waiting to lift!



Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod
411 Main Street
Yarmouthport, MA 02675
508-362-3559