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Through the 2015-16 school year, Riverland Community College students, volunteers and soon-to-be homeowners have all been hard at work building a home in northeast Austin.
As Habitat’s Executive Director Brigitte Fisher looked around at Riverland students working on wood floors and walls of the budding home on a chilly November afternoon, she couldn’t help but be excited.
“The energy here is amazing,” she said.
The Freeborn/Mower Habitat chapter has seen a wave of activity in recent years, whether it’s through building houses, fixing up properties or its ReStore in the Sterling Shopping Center.
The work to build its most recent home for Gabait Nagid and Nasra Damin and their family was just the latest example of what’s built the recent success of the Freeborn/Mower Habitat for Humanity: partnerships.
“Then big results happen,” Fisher said. “Then you really are starting to make a difference. And that’s what happened with us, ‘We just said, ‘Hey, we can’t do this alone. Who’s with us?’ And then its just been snowballing from there.”
The turnaround was perhaps best displayed when the Freeborn Mower/Habitat for Humanity was asked by Habitat International to present at a regional A Brush With Kindness gathering with representatives from many surrounding states. The premise of Freeborn/Mower’s presentation was on how the chapter was able to serve so many families through its home repair programs. Freeborn/Mower leaders also did a statewide webinar on the same topic.
“There’s a lot of focus on our affiliate right now, others who are struggling to serve a handful of families wondering how we’re serving 30-plus families,” Fisher said. “The reason for our success has been our partnerships. As soon as you decide, hey, poverty is a big giant problem and set aside your pride and say, ‘We can’t tackle this on our own,’ you look at who else is concerned [and] come together and partner up.”
When Fisher started with Habitat, she admits the group needed a boost.
Community partnerships have provided the boost in both communities. In Austin, it’s Vision 2020’s Community Home Improvement Project, the Austin Housing and Redevelopment Authority, Riverland Community College, and smaller partners like many churches, concerned community members and more people. In Freeborn County, Fisher said it’s the United Way, the HRA, Shinefest’s Rocking the Block, which she said is similar to CHIP, and more.
When Fisher started, the CHIP program hadn’t yet begun, and the affiliate hadn’t built a house in a year and the group was in a bit of a lull.
“We needed a new surge of energy,” Fisher said. “We needed a new spark, and CHIP really was that spark.”
CHIP was created in 2013 by Vision 2020’s Community Pride and Spirit Committee, Freeborn/Mower Habitat for Humanity and the HRA. CHIP’s goals are to help homeowners preserve their homes by intervening with needed maintenance to improve the overall appearance of homes in Austin and to build connections among residents.
CHIP’s 2015 goal was to help 20 families, making for close to 40 homes that have been helped by the volunteer-based program over the last three years.
“The biggest changes were we are positively affecting families, and that’s the bottom line is we’re serving more families,” Fisher said. “We have larger support.”
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