Community Kick-Off for our

Please join us!

Meet the new homeowners for numbers 6 and 9 Park Place Way, meet the volunteer leadership for this site, learn how to get involved and help build it!

Invite your friends!

If you know someone who has always wondered about Habitat, please tell them about this Kick-Off. A Community Kick-Off is the best place to get all your Habitat questions answered!

Thanks to Eastern Bank Foundation for their support of these two Mashpee homes.

Mashpee Kick-Off

Monday, June 10th

6-7pm

Mashpee Senior Center

26 Frank Hicks Drive, Mashpee

Light refreshments will be served.

Mary Scanlan (left) talks to Cathy McMullen at the Russell Road Dedication

Both Mary Scanlan and Betsy Giles, who often - but not always - volunteer for Habitat together as a team, have very impressive backgrounds. 

Mary is a retired clinical social worker whose first job was at the inpatient unit at Mass Mental Health in Boston. She mostly worked with the families of mentally ill individuals, although she sometimes worked with the individuals themselves. Mass Mental Health trained psychiatric residents, and Mary found it a great place to learn. While she was there, she started a Community Health Program, a model she believes is invaluable in the field of social work to this day. After 15 years at MMH, she became the Chief Social Worker and Director of Social Services for the Cambridge Guidance Center, a child guidance center. In 1956, she moved to Cape Cod, where she became the Coordinator of Human Services for the town of Falmouth, before moving on to direct the outpatient department for the Mental Health Center in Pocasset. Mary retired in the 1980s.

Mary firmly believes that there is almost never a need to hospitalize a mentally ill person. "People get better. If they are treated properly, and with the right resources, people actually get better." When Mary worked at the Mental Health Center in Pocasset, she and a staff of two "managed to keep track of every mentally ill person on the Upper Cape. We knew them, we knew when they would get into trouble, when they were not taking their medication - that's the way it should be done." Mary brings that same level of commitment to her work with Habitat, where she has been a family partner on a number of occasions, and is on the Family Partner Committee. She also serves on Habitat's Board of Directors and on the Family Selection Committee. Mary says Habitat is "an excellent program. I'm proud to be a part of it."

Betsy Giles and Pamela Rothstein (standing) with Bill Hough and Nell Fields (seated) - a few members of the Falmouth Builds Together Committee

Betsy has worked with Mary since she started volunteering with Habitat. "Mary has been a mentor to me. She always has the families as her top priority. She is an inspiration." Betsy first got to know Mary on the Family Selection Committee, which Betsy now co-chairs. Betsy also serves on the Volunteer Relations Committee, the Events Committee, the 25th Gala Committee, and Falmouth Builds Together.

Betsy taught elementary school for a number of years - in Northhampton, New Mexico, Natick and Needham, and then ran a daycare in her home while her son and twin daughters were young. She retired as a family childcare provider in 2005, and then moved to the Cape. She now works part-time as a medical records clerk in a doctor's office in Falmouth.  Both Betsy and Mary also volunteer with other organizations. How do they find the time? Mary says the work with Habitat "bunches." "There is too much to do; then it calms down and you think you could volunteer more, but it will bunch up again."  

Both women are fully committed to the Habitat mission and say they relate to it 100%. Besty comments, "Going to visit the families in their current living situation is eye opening. Many people on the Cape probably do not have any idea how some people live." As family partners, Mary and Besty get to follow a family's progress for a full year after they have moved into their new home. Once a family has a new home, they say, the family becomes like every other family that owns a house - they sometimes struggle, but they also have a safe, decent home. Mary says, "I like to hear about the events at their own home. Not just the holidays, but the cookouts, graduations - things they couldn't do before."

Mary laughs as she explains how most people react when she says she volunteers with Habitat for Humanity. "They say, 'Really?' They are picturing me on a ladder on a roof! I tell them I can't go on the site, the insurance would go up!"  Mary feels it is important for folks to understand that they don't have to be able to do the manual work. "They have a fantasy that they will be hammering. But there are volunteer opportunities beside construction. And it is a great organization to work with - easier than many other organizations. The staff make you feel appreciated and that you are a part of the organization."

We hope you, too, will want to be a part of things here at Habitat! To volunteer, contact Dawn Walnut at dawn@habitatcapecod.org or 508-362-3559 ex. 16.