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Calendar
Tuesday, June 16
Volunteer Kick-Off
Learn about volunteer opportunities at our newest construction site on Oak Street in Harwich.
6:00 - 7:00 pm
St. Peter's Lutheran Church
310 Rt. 137, Harwich
Tuesday, June 23
Sesame Street Dedication
Come and celebrate with us as we bless 28 and 29 Sesame Street.
6:00 pm
Sesame Street, Barnstable
directions here
Sunday, June 28
Bevan Way Dedication
Come and celebrate with us as we bless 16 and 19 Bevan Way
2:00 pm
Bevan Way, Orleans
directions here
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News In Brief
This month's News in Brief is all about thanks! We are so blessed to have so many wonderful supporters, and so grateful to all of them.
Thanks to Cape Cod Wholesale Nursery!
If you've visited a completed Habitat home recently and thought the landscaping looked good, some of the credit goes to the Wholesale Nursery in Falmouth. They have donated end-of-season plants to several of our sites. We are grateful to them for their generosity.
Thanks to Sandwich High!
Speaking of landscaping, a terrific and highly motivated team from Sandwich High School's Habitat Campus Chapter recently came out to finish the plantings at Bevan Way in Orleans. The site looks beautiful! Thank you, Sandwich High!
Thanks to Hole In One!
Hole in One Restaurant in Orleans
has been providing Habitat
volunteers with donuts for years
now. And our volunteers will tell you
that you can't find a better donut
anywhere on the planet. If you don't
believe us, just ask Gilbert.
Thanks to Sturgis Charter Public School!
Another shout of thanks - this time to the group from Sturgis High who came out to help clean up the grounds and do some painting at the ReStore. It looks fabulous!
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Construction Update
Volunteers may sign up with VolunteerUP, our on-line calendar, to work at any active construction site.
We're nearly done! There are just a few more details to finish up on the house at 10 Bevan Way. We will do exterior grading and driveways soon, and landscape in the fall. Other than that, this beautiful neighborhood is complete. There will be a dedication ceremony for 16 and 19 Bevan Way on June 28th.
Barnstable
Another site where the work is nearly complete. There will be a dedication ceremony for both homes on June 23rd.
Harwich
We've been working on the decks, the trusses are being delivered, gable walls are being prepared, and we're getting ready for asphalt. Unless something unexpected happens, we are still on target for a late June Wall Raising Day - four homes in one day! Workdays for this site will be Tuesdays and Saturdays, and will be listed in VolunteerUP starting June 17th.
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If you are placing an order through Amazon, remember to use Amazon Smile and specify Habitat Cape Cod - Habitat will receive a .5% of the purchase price. Here's a link to help: Amazon Smile 
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Harwich Oak Street, Getting Ready:
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Greetings!
Are we busy at Habitat you ask? Well, this month we've got one Kick-Off, two Dedications, and maybe (keep your fingers crossed) one Wall Raising. Ready, Set, GO!
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Volunteer Kick-Off
 Seven new families will soon start construction on their very own Habitat homes. The families are pictured here with their family partners. If you want to meet them all, come to our Volunteer Kick-Off! This is also the event to attend if you want to more about how to get involved as a volunteer at our Harwich construction site - or learn about how volunteering with Habitat works. And please help us spread the word about this event - we bet you know someone who would enjoy getting involved, whether to swing a hammer, provide food, or staff the registration table in the mornings. Tuesday, June 16 - 6:00pm St. Peter's Lutheran Church 310 Rt. 137 (near exit 11) Harwich |
Welcome, Chris Slagle, ReStore Associate!
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| | ReStore Associates Gift Chimwaza and Chris Slagle |
Ask Chris Slagle how he likes his new job as a ReStore Associate and he's quick with his answer: "I'm happy to help people. That's why I come in every day." He will admit that the money helps, but says if he didn't have bills to pay, he'd probably volunteer.
Chris describes himself as a "physical labor kind of guy" which is good - because ReStore Associates do a lot of heavy lifting - unloading furniture, appliances, or building supplies when new merchandise comes in, moving items around on the sales floor, and moving purchases into customer's vehicles. And Chris says he likes it all - except perhaps when the heaviest piece in the store needs to be loaded right before the store is going to close at end of the day!
Chris grew up in Sandwich and has lived on Cape Cod all his life. One of his great joys is that he gets to take care of his best friend's daughter, who he loves as if she were his own. He babysits for her regularly, and says his greatest dream is to "one day be a good dad, whenever the opportunity comes around."
Like many Cape Codders, Chris has held mostly service jobs: working in grocery stores, restaurants, gyms, hotels, and other retail stores. What he says makes the ReStore different is that "the people really want to be here." After a lifetime of working jobs where people are only there for the paycheck, Chris likes seeing folks who care about their work and enjoy helping others. He likes that ReStore customers are happy to be shopping in a place where they know their purchases support Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod - "a healthy way to give back." And he enjoys working with all the ReStore volunteers, for whom he is grateful. They understand, Chris says, that "when you have the opportunity to do more, you shouldn't turn that down."
We're so happy that Chris has joined the ReStore team!
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Team Habitat in the Last Gasp!
 Last year, our Last Gasp team raised almost $30,000 for Habitat Cape Cod. Now is the time to join this year's team. Our Habitat team leaders, Kathy Herrick and Frank Almeida, have started scheduling training rides and are planning other gatherings. They also have lots of tips, so if you are new to Last Gasp, be sure to contact them. (If you are on the team, make sure you're getting updates - contact Kathy Herrick to be put on the list).
If you don't want to ride yourself, we bet you know someone who wants to wear that snazzy Team Habitat shirt - tell them to sign up!
We are pleased to announce that Katelynn's Closet will be riding as an ally to Habitat for this year's Last Gasp. Katelynn's Closet was founded in 2008 with the mission of providing needy boys and girls on Cape Cod and the Islands, ages 4-18, with free, gently used and new clothing and footwear. Check out their website.
We applaud the important work being done by this organization and welcome Katelynn's Closet to the Habitat family.
Register here to ride.
Be sure to check "Habitat for Humanity - Cape Cod"
as the beneficiary you are supporting.
There is also a place to add "Team Habitat' as your team.
Thanks to our sponsors:
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Dedications
Congratulations are in order! After building and raising walls; setting roof trusses; sheathing the roof; trimming out the fascia boards, soffits, corner boards, and mittens; setting windows and doors; installing proper vents, rigid insulation, and hurricane clips; strapping; making the story pole; installing clapboard; sidewalling; installing vents, fans, and driers; hanging blue board; priming and painting; installing flooring; hanging doors; installing interior trim; hanging cabinets; installing countertops; installing appliances; insulating pipes; installing towel racks and hardware; and cleaning (Whew!),
We are ready to celebrate!
 Tuesday, June 23rdSesame Street Dedication Ceremony
Homes of Rachel Hicks and family and
Donovan and Katherine Wing and family
28 and 29 Sesame Street, Barnstable
6:00 pm
Sunday, June 28th
Bevan Way Dedication Ceremony
Homes of Shoshannah Dibble and family and
Kelly Lungo and family
16 and 19 Bevan Way, Orleans
2:00 pm
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Volunteer Spotlight - Blitz Build Steering Committee
This story originally appeared in the Cape Codder
"One home... for One family... in One week." That's the motto of the 2015 Home Builders Blitz Build, as well as its goal. The first walls will be set into place on Monday morning and the homeowner family will move into their new home the following Sunday - one of the over 200 blitz builds held nationally this year. Two years ago, the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Cape Cod (HB&RACC) committed to help Habitat for Humanity of Cape Cod by coordinating a Blitz Build at a Habitat construction site in Orleans. This year, they are doing it again - this time for one of seven Habitat homes in Harwich. This is part of HB&RACC's goal to build awareness of the need for affordable housing on Cape Cod. The home will be completed the week of September 21, 2015.
Even though construction will take place in a single, carefully scheduled week, planning is already well underway, with a production team busy collecting donations of materials and labor. The construction schedule, which needs to be carefully choreographed, is also being plotted now.
Peter Kimball, of AP Kimball Construction in Yarmouth Port, was the chair of the Blitz Steering Committee in 2013, and is in charge of coordinating materials donations for this year's blitz. Remembering back to 2013, Peter laughs, admitting that he was nervous about completing the house in a week. In the end, he says he was very pleased at how well it came out, and especially how enthusiastically the project was greeted by the community. He noted that all the contractors involved seemed to have a blast, even if they were "competing companies in the commercial world, and even on days when a lot of people had to work together in a small space. As soon as it was over, everyone was revved up to do it again. There was no hesitation."
Blitz Steering Committee Chair Gail O'Rourke, of White Wood Kitchens in Sandwich, echoes Peter's thoughts on the 2013 Blitz, in which she participated as a volunteer helping to lay wood flooring. Gail remembers, "There were people everywhere, climbing ladders, building decks, hauling material and buzzing around. We worked hard for 10 hours. We had finish carpenters climbing over us to get to window trim, kitchen cabinets were placed moments after the nail hit the floor board. There wasn't a second to spare or a moment wasted." Gail's positive experience led her to volunteer again in 2015: "I decided to get on board this time as Steering Committee Chair because I love to see a project from inception to completion. The satisfaction from bringing all the parts and pieces together to form a beautiful new home - there's nothing that beats it."
This September, all kinds of contractors: carpenters, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, wall board and insulation installers, plasterers, roofers - and a myriad of others - will be volunteering to help. Trevor Meyer, of Meyer and Sons, Inc, is in charge of coordinating the professionals who will volunteer their labor, a task that requires him to find the necessary volunteers, and also to schedule them so that skilled labor will be in the right places at the right time. Trevor was drawn to the project because he believes Habitat for Humanity does "great things for deserving families on the Cape. The cost of living on the Cape makes it difficult to own a home, even for those in the trade of building homes for others."
Those who visited the Blitz construction site in 2013 were struck by the sense of camaraderie they found. Roe Osborn was on the site as a photographer that week. "Everyone seemed to go out of their way to get along. I did not hear a single angry or frustrated voice the entire week. Despite a frenzied atmosphere that would have precipitated outbursts on any jobsite, everyone worked with a singular purpose, freely and cheerfully giving of their time and talents."
Thanks to the Home Builders and Remodelers Association of Cape Cod, that atmosphere will be re-created this coming September. Check out the Blitz Build website.
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