Mizzou Alternative Breaks Blog: Chattanooga--Habitat

Monday! First day of service at Habitat for Humanity. We started our morning off learning about the many great facets of Habitat. Want to hear about them? Ok because we want to share. Habitat for Humanity started in 1976 in the state just below us, Georgia, but Habichatt (Chattanooga's affiliate) launched in 1986 and is one of the oldest affiliate's out there. They work in the Greater Chattanooga area and will soon complete their 250th home build. Habitat's main mission is the relieve poverty housing throughout the world and the work they do abroad is extensive. Currently in the world there are one billion urban slums.

How Habitat operates so successfully is through thousands of partnerships, not only with donors but more importantly with the families of homes. A Habitat home is a "hand-up" and not a hand-out. Each family goes through an extensive application process before the partnership is entered. Once the process is begun the families put in hundreds of hours of "sweat equity" or labor on the home. As they put in more hours more decisions on details and progress of building are made. The homes are built through volunteer labor and donated materials. This provides a sustainable, graduated solution to last beyond a single generation. The importance of a home to well being is vital. One homeowner puts it, "Home is where you get the energy in life to be everything you can be".

Another aspect of Habichatt is their huge ReStore. The ReStore is a thrift store of donated construction items, building materials, and furniture. The revenue helps sustain Habitat so it is a great resource. Today we served in the ReStore by reorganizing, painting, hauling, unloading, loading, lifting, sorting, cleaning, rearranging, stirring, walking, laughing, eating, and breathing. Our many clones made our work go by super quickly, when they weren't sitting on the toilet). By far the best part of day was the amazing Habitat staff we got the privilege of working with. Between Joe, Dominque, and Marty we receive many thanks and encouragements for the smallest of tasks. The energy of the staff and their passion for service with Habitat was just what we needed to get pumped for the week ahead of us. For a visual illustration of our day look below. Besides stay tuned for our work with the Neighborhood Revitalization on Tuesday!