(Seguin) — Seguin’s Habitat for Humanity affiliate needs immediate help from the community.
Habitat Executive Director Madeline Zwicke says they are reaching a major milestone by building their 50th and 51st homes in Seguin. But she says they need your help getting the projects across the finish line.
Zwicke says they find themselves, right now, in need of some additional support from the community. She says there are several ways for individuals, families, organizations, churches and businesses to show their support for Habitat for Humanity.
“August 23rd is going to be our love thy neighbor event, so we’ll be partnering with local churches and faith groups to come out and help sponsor our 50th and 51st houses. We have Living Waters (Church) coming out and then we have some spaces for other churches to get involved with us. So, if you’re a faith group or if you’re a church that’s looking to get involved or looking to send volunteers, we can have groups, or you can come as an individual. We can have groups of five, 10, 15 or 20 for the day. So, if you think, oh, I only have five people interested,’ we still have a space for you. We are also looking for our lunch sponsor, and a prayer leader for the day. So, we have different options available.
Maybe building and raising walls isn’t your thing. We’d love to have you come out and just support the other volunteers that are building, and just to meet the family. This is a huge milestone for Habitat. (We are building) our 50th house here in Seguin. So, whoever wants to come celebrate that, they’re more than welcome,” said Zwicke.
Zwicke recently announced that Habitat would be permanently closing its popular ReStore in downtown Seguin.
The announcement was made after the store’s building was damaged during flooding that occurred in Seguin over the Fourth of July weekend.
Zwicke says despite the closure, their mission to build affordable and decent housing for hard-working families in Seguin, continues; however, more help is still required.
“Our home building is continuing here in Seguin and Guadalupe County. That is very much not going away. We have been so fortunate to relocate our administrative offices to Emanuel’s Lutheran Church. These are temporary offices, but we are looking for something long term right now, but we are still continuing (to operate). We’re committed to building six homes in 2025. We will be having a double wall raising in the next month to raise (the walls for) houses five and six for 2025. We’re still committed to that, we still have homebuyers in our pipeline, and we still are accepting applications year-round. We are here, and we still want to tell people that we are going to have a presence here. We’re still accepting applications and we’re still building (homes). We just don’t have the storefront on Court Street,” said Zwicke.
The Habitat store’s closure does make doing its work harder. The resale store, which sold everything from furniture to household items to new appliances, was a big part of the fundraising effort for the non-profit organization.
Zwicke says that’s why they are asking for immediate assistance to help with their work in Seguin. She says they now have to start working on replacing those funds.
“That is a huge loss for our community. It’s also a huge loss for Habitat. We really do rely on the ReStore to help cover some of our home building expenses and our overhead. So, we are very much still trying to raise funds for our 50th and 51st homes. We’ve raised about a third of the money for our 50th home. Just to put it out there, every Habitat house that we’re building right now, costs $145,000 to build. We’ve raised about $50,000 of that, and we really more than ever need the community’s support to rally around Habitat. With our store being closed during this time, (we need people) to come together and help us fund this home so that we can continue to build for hard-working and deserving families in Seguin,” said Zwicke.
Donations of all sizes are being sought now to help with their current home building projects.
Zwicke says they’ve made it easy for people to give directly to these projects. You can sponsor the whole thing or help to pay for them one square-foot at a time.
“We do have our Sponsor-A-Square-Foot campaign. This is a great way for individual to get involved. You can sponsor a square-foot for our 50th house for $50. If you want to sponsor one square foot, awesome; or if you want to do a whole room, that’s even better. We’d love to have everybody participate to some level. Our Sponsor-A-Square-Foot campaign gives everybody a chance to get involved in that way. All that information can be found at our website, habitatsa.org,” said Zwicke.
In addition to financial giving, Zwicke says they are also looking for a permanent home for their offices in Seguin.
They are also seeking more volunteers, who can help with current and future home building projects.
Again, to sponsor a square-foot for the new homes being built in Seguin or to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, visit habitatSA.org.