Brush with Fame Habitat for Humanity

Let me tell you about my fifteen minutes of fame with habitat for humanity. Being a partner family for our local habitat for humanity affiliate has brought my family many things but one thing it brought me was a bit of fame.

Habitat for humanity is a charity that works with low income people who live in substandard housing. The goal of this charity is to eliminate poverty housing from around the world. You must meet their income guidelines to be eligible for a house, and you have to have a means to pay for it. The partner families are expected to pay off the house with monthly mortgage payments.

I have been a proud partner family since October of 1993, and currently have 14 more years of mortgage payments to complete.

1995

I wrote a letter to Millard and Linda Fuller who began habitat for humanity and told them our story and someone who intercepted the letter invited us to the state conference. A woman named Robin had gotten of my letter, called the local affiliate, and asked for my number.

She told someone from our local affiliate that I had sent a warm fuzzy letter and she wanted our entire family down there to meet the Fullers as a surprise at the yearly meeting. This was the yearly meeting for the Mid Atlantic Regional Conference in May 1995 for Habitat for Humanity. It was a two-day huge event.

We made the trip to Harrisburg Pennsylvania with the three kids and went to the church where they were having the meeting. I did feel a bit out of place, as I know they were mostly the volunteers in place and not the homeowners like us. I would soon learn that I had no reason to feel uncomfortable, because soon everyone in attendance would know my story, therefore it would be as if we were introduced to all 500 plus of those in attendance.