Habitat For Humanity Seeking Habitant

CHAPPELL – With the purchase of a home there comes a great sense of responsibility. There comes with it a stronger sense of ownership when the family that will make a house a home helps builds it. Helping to build your own home is just one part of a Habitat For Humanity project, but it is the part where the Chappell chapter is hung up.

After extensive fundraisers to collect the necessary money for home construction, Chappell’s Habitat For Humanity program is seeking a family meeting the requirements to help build and then occupy that home.

“Currently we are above the $35,000 mark we need to start the project and are now in the process of locating a family,” said Chappell chapter chairman Rich Graeff. “We have brochures out in several places in Chappell, Oshkosh, Julesburg, Sedgwick and Sidney, which state the qualifications that a family must meet in order to be a part of the selection process.”

The search for a family has been going on for approximately one-and-a-half months, Graeff said.

According to Habitat For Humanity, families in need of decent shelter can apply. A family selection committee chooses homeowners based on their level of need, their willingness to become partners in the program and their ability to repay the loan.

“Habitat is not a giveaway program,” the organization said. “In addition to a down payment and monthly mortgage payments, homeowners invest hundreds of hours of their own labor (sweat equity) into building their Habitat house and the houses of others.”

According to the organization’s Web site, each affiliate chapter coordinates all aspects of Habitat homebuilding in its local area. For the Chappell affiliate, it has been a multi-year road to get to this point.

In 2006, the executive director of Habitat For Humanity approached the Buckley Trust Fund in Chappell with a grant request to help fund the Habitat for Humanity chapter in Ogallala, Graeff said.

“During that conversation, the Buckley trustee members asked if it would be possible for a Habitat For Humanity chapter be started in Chappell,” Graeff said. “The executive director said that it was possible and Mark Empson, a member of the Chamber of Commerce Community Development Committee, was contacted.”

Empson agreed to help get the program off the ground, Graeff said, contacting several people in the community including clergy, business owners, contractors, photographers, media, bankers and more to see if there was interest in helping with the project.

“The response was overwhelming,” Graeff said. “A meeting was set up on Feb. 27, 2007, and Habitat For Humanity Prairie Builders Chapter was birthed.”

After the committees were formed, the chapter set about locating a property upon which to build the house. It was the chapter’s decision that the home be made available to anyone within a 30-mile radius of Chappell, including towns in Colorado that fall within the radius.

“Immediately we were informed of a piece of land that the City of Chappell owned,” Graeff said. “The chapter attended a council meeting and the City of Chappell agreed to donate a lot that was given to them for the building of the house.”

Since gaining the property, the chapter has held several fundraisers such as a golf tournament, penny carnival, raffles and track meet concessions to raise the needed funds. Now with funds exceeding what is recommended for start, the next piece of the puzzle is to locate a family.

Brochures with requirements are available in local banks, churches and city offices. If you or someone you know is interested in becoming a Habitat For Humanity family, contact the Family Selection Committee at 308-874-2215. To join Habitat For Humanity, contact 308-874-6305.