Baylor to Build Habitat House for Local Family
by LoAna Lopez
Baylor's Faculty Senate, Staff Council and the campus Habitat for Humanity student chapter will help make one family's dream a reality - from the ground up in only six weeks - with the building of Waco's 61st Habitat house.
The Baylor community is being asked for donations of either money or manual labor to help with the home's construction, which costs $32,000. Faculty and staff hope to raise half the funds for the project with the student chapter raising the other $16,000.
The home, to be built for and with the Gayle family of Waco, will be located at 1008 Church Ave. Hands-on work begins with the framing of the house at 7:30 a.m. until dark on Saturday, March 17. On all other Saturdays through April 28, with the exception of Easter weekend, work hours will be from 8 a.m. until 4 p.m., with lunch provided. The project will conclude with a house dedication on April 28.
There also will be work on weekday afternoons to be coordinated by the Baylor Habitat chapter and Habitat construction supervisor Matt Hanks. All students must register through the campus chapter. Faculty and staff can register by contacting Rona Stefka, chair of the special projects committee for Staff Council, at 710'4881.
Baylor employees can contribute financially through payroll deduction or by sending a check to the payroll office at P.O. Box 97042. Organizers are asking that all payroll deduction forms or checks be forwarded to the payroll office by Friday, March 2. Those opting for payroll deduction are encouraged to complete giving by July so that full payment can be made to Waco Habitat for Humanity.
Habitat was founded in 1976 by Millard Fuller, a Georgia attorney. Habitat is headquartered in Americus, Ga., and has 1,531 affiliates in the United States and 63 other countries. There are more than 600 chapters on high school and college campuses in the U.S. and 11 other countries.
Baylor Habitat for Humanity became the organization's first collegiate chapter when it was chartered in 1987. About 200 students are involved with the organization, said chapter president Ahmed Al-Hafidh.
Through volunteer labor and tax-deductible donations of money and materials, Habitat builds and rehabilitates simple, decent houses with the help of the homeowner (partner) families. Habitat houses are sold to partner families at no profit and financed with affordable, no-interest loans. The homeowners' monthly mortgage payments go into a revolving Fund for Humanity that is used to build more houses. In addition to a down payment and the monthly mortgage payments, each homeowner family invests hundreds of hours of their own labor - sweat equity - into the building of their house and the houses of others.
For more information about the project, contact Dr. Jay Losey, chair of the Faculty Senate, at 710'4896, Stefka at 710'4881 or Al-Hafidh at 755'6593.
For more information about Waco Habitat for Humanity, visit their web site at https://www.wacohabitat.org. Baylor's campus chapter also has a web site at https://www.baylor.edu/~H4H.