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More than 100 years ago, the Andersen family started a business in their hometown of Bayport, Minn. It is only fitting that they completed the 100th home of their 100 Years/100 Homes Campaign in Bayport this fall.
"Completing our 100th home with Habitat brings an incredible feeling of accomplishment for the Andersen team. Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity has provided excellent leadership, which has been key to our company's success with this project," said Jim Humphrey, President and CEO, Andersen Corporation.
In 2003, when Andersen Corporation celebrated their 100th year in business, they committed to building 100 homes over a five-year period in partnership with Habitat for Humanity. The company and their family-related foundations donated $5 million to fund the homes and has partnered with their employees to build the homes around the United States and Canada. A leader in Andersen's commitment to community engagement, Sarah Andersen, company board member, has worked across the nation on all of the 100 Years/100 Homes build projects.
Of the 100 Years/100 Homes, 64 have been built with Twin Cities Habitat, with an additional 14 that were completed in partnership with the Twin Cities affiliate as part of Operation Home Delivery hurricane relief efforts. Homes have also been built nationwide in cities where Andersen employees work and live, including Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Denver, Des Moines, Detroit, Indianapolis, New Orleans, Phoenix, San Francisco, and London, Ontario.
While each site and every new Habitat homebuyer family were special in their own way to the Andersen volunteers, there were definitely some memorable projects that stood out. The very first 100 Years/100 Homes project included five homes on Ames Avenue in St. Paul, or what is also known as Germain Landing.
"Before we started, it was empty government lots with no housing. It was very meaningful to watch it develop over the course of several years, and turn into the truly beautiful neighborhood it is today," said Susan Roeder, Community Affairs Manager for Andersen Corporation.
Other memorable moments during the campaign included building ten units, a four-plex and a six-plex, at Garden Gate in Woodbury. At the time, it was the largest construction project undertaken by Twin Cities Habitat. "Garden Gate was an enormous, complicated undertaking that was very rewarding for us," Roeder said.
 Twelve inches of rain on day two of the Garden Gate project certainly didn't dampen the volunteers' spirits. "Well, we lost a few roads in addition to the construction challenges. But we persevered," said Roeder, laughing.
And then there was Bayport. In addition to the house sponsorship, Andersen donated the land for the house, which is adjacent to the company's headquarters.
"It was a great example of ‘yes in my backyard'," said Rhonda Thorson, Twin Cities Habitat's senior site supervisor assigned to the Bayport house. "There were always extra employees around supporting the build project, as well as the entire community and neighborhood. Everyone in town was really excited to build this house, and it was fun to work with such an intense excitement."
Through the five week "blitz build" in Bayport, Andersen had 259 volunteers work on the house.
"I now see all those faces in the halls at work, and they are waving and smiling. You can see how much accomplishing something like this does for your sense of well being. It instills a sense of pride in what you do for a living, and energizes you get up in the morning to make it all happen," said Roeder.
Andersen's 100 homes included more than 400,000 feet of 2-by-4 lumber, 148,500 shingles (weighing more than 96 tons), and about 5,000 gallons of paint.
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