Guest blog by Shannon Twiss
Volunteer Coordinator

Although it’s hard to believe given the weekend’s weather, spring is just around the corner! This May, we will be completing a second set of chore services as a pilot for our new Age In Place program. Last fall, we partnered with nine senior homeowners to complete chore services. Forty-two volunteers provided 180 hours of leaf-raking, garden clean-up, pruning and yard clean-up.

This spring, we will be doing similar work as in the fall, as well as helping homeowners prepare their gardens for planting.

Joe Felion is one of several AmeriCorps members that have transitioned to a Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity employee. He currently is a Site Supervisor for the A Brush with Kindness program, which is a home repair program focusing on keeping aging homeowners in their homes. Joe lives life in the moment, but looking back at his work and life experiences, it all makes perfect sense.

It was a summer Kathleen and Kyle will never forget. Without knowing each other, they had joined a regular volunteer crew working on a Habitat home repair project. They met at the top of a roof while ripping out shingles. They went on a date. They fell in love. Eight years later, in the fall of 2017, they were married.

Cindy is a people person. She understands human behavior and recognizes that “we all have a story. Or two. Or three.” In her job, Cindy listens to A Brush with Kindness homeowners’ stories and works with them to write a positive chapter. 

Cassandra loves her block in the Phillips neighborhood of Minneapolis. She bought her home in 2002, and liked that it was close to everything—to her studies at the University of Minnesota, and to her job at Ameriprise in downtown Minneapolis. She has a long-term tenant upstairs, which makes it more affordable.

“I love my neighbors, and I’m very lucky to live in my neighborhood,” Cassandra says.

The saying great minds think alike rings true with the new home repair collaboration being hosted by Twin Cities Habitat.

The week before Alison started her job at Twin Cities Habitat in 2015, she found something surprising at her childhood home in Indiana: a school project in which she described that she dreamed of working for Habitat for Humanity when she grew up.

Alison didn’t recall that “dream” of hers, but now it is reality. Alison is a Project Supervisor with our A Brush with Kindness Paint and Repair Program. She brings to her role experience with critical home repair work, plus a ton of passion for serving others.

Long-time volunteer, Bruce Moulton and the “EpiscoBuilders” have been volunteering with Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity for over twenty years. Not only do they help build homes to support affordable housing, but Bruce also builds tiny homes… for the birds! Each home that the EpiscoBuilders help build, the Habitat homeowners also receive a birdhouse built by Bruce.

If you partner with Twin Cities Habitat for home repairs, you’ll get to know America Lindgren. As the A Brush with Kindness Program Coordinator, America is with homeowners from start to finish on their home repair journey—from ensuring applications are complete to signing off on the completed project. And while she coordinates projects with families from a distance, she knows first-hand the trials and tribulations of trying to preserve and adapt a home.

For a nonprofit innovation can be tricky. Unbridled goodwill can result in ineffective mission creep if you’re not careful. But nonprofits that don’t innovate, just like businesses that don’t, run the risk of becoming obsolete.