Gratitude and happiness go hand-in-hand. That’s a message you may hear a lot, and you may already be determined to bring it into your life. But how can you do that?
When you become a Habitat Housing Hero, your voice helps shape housing decisions in our community. Through your advocacy, you can multiply your positive impact on the Twin Cities. The latest evidence of Housing Heroes’ impact is seen in the 2017 budget recently approved by the City of Minneapolis.
By Scott Bolin
Guest Blogger, Freelance Writer
When you are born as a middle child in a family of 12, you find a unique role helping to align the family– or as Stephen puts it– “being the center of gravity”. And as that family grew up - enveloped in the war, corruption and injustices in Liberia - Stephen found a larger calling in helping to heal the world through human rights advocacy, and cross cultural communications. Those efforts shuttled him between educational opportunities in the U.S. and grass roots program implementation in his homeland. Eventually Stephen’s journey led him to Minnesota, where he helped develop and implement minority-focused financial assistance programs for homeownership in small towns across Minnesota.
As many of you know, we launched a new blog featuring our ReStore stories, projects, staff, volunteers, and events. In order to make sure you still receive the highlights of what's happening at our ReStores, we publish a "ReStore Recap", in order to give you an overview of all the great posts being published over at The ReStoration Corner.
It has been several months since we dedicated our first few Habitat homes in the city of Hugo, and the families have since settled into their new routines in their new community. We recently caught up with homeowners Mohamed and Kinsi, who live in one of the Habitat townhomes. They shared their Habitat journey with us, so that we could share it with all of you.
Guest Blog by Caitlin Magistad
Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity Staff
On Thursday, December 15, 2016, Simpson Housing Services hosted the 32nd Annual Homeless March and Memorial Service. Each year the event honors those who passed away while homeless, individuals who were formerly homeless, and advocates for the homeless community who have passed away.
Peggy Schnack is no stranger to volunteerism and service to others.
Habitat for Humanity has an amazing way of bringing people together—for a single day or an entire lifetime. Doing something that is outside of your comfort zone, like running a circular saw, raising a wall into place, or getting to know a family that you'd otherwise never interact with, can be an intense experience. It opens you up, makes you physically or emotionally vulnerable. And it's in that space of vulnerability that people can grow together and form deep friendships. A day of volunteering with Twin Cities Habitat is very powerful. It can change how you see yourself, your neighbors, and your entire community.
This past Saturday, we celebrated Gabi and Alime's family, and the completion of their Habitat home in South St. Paul.
Becoming a homeowner is a rewarding experience and a strong investment for many families. With an ambitious goal to double our impact in the Twin Cities by serving more families, Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity has rolled out a new homeownership process led by an innovative staff.