Habitat for Austin
Published 2:43 pm Monday, June 11, 2012
Jacob Burgett, right, and Noah Bawek, tear down a metal shed during Habit for Humanity's A Brush with Kindness program Saturday in Austin. Volunteers tore down a shed, removed a rotting deck and cleaned up debris for a total of four homeowners over the weekend.
Volunteers turned out for local cleanup project
Busy hands scoured the yards of four Austin homes this weekend but not because they were required. Some volunteers simply see it as the right thing to do.
Volunteers from the Hormel Foods Corp. food production department filled multiple dumpsters with debris while serving Habitat for Humanity.
“I’m a mother, and I want to teach my children just how to be better people,” said Jessica Fett of the food products division at Hormel Foods Corp., who was volunteering with others from her department during a Habitat for Humanity cleanup. Fett, along with Neal Hull at Hormel, decided to encourage their department to join the Habitat for Humanity Freeborn/Mower program. More than a dozen people, including Fett’s four children and many other youngsters, helped tear down an unsightly shed, remove a rotting deck and dispose of debris from Sharon Dieser and Lori Dieser’s homes in the 1000 block of 13th Ave. NE on Saturday. Lori, Sharon’s daughter, said the two have wanted to clean and fix up their homes but haven’t had the money. Habitat for Humanity made that possible. Homeowners in that area all received letters in the mail from Habitat for Humanity, and the Diesers happily accepted the offer.
“It’s really nice,” Lori said. “They volunteered, and it’s going to be reasonable to actually get the house fixed.”
Though Habitat for Humanity is mainly known for building homes, a local offshoot called A Brush with Kindness now helps low-income homeowners with projects like Saturday’s.
“We paint a lot of houses, fix things, clean up their yards,” said Thomas H. Egan, A Brush with Kindness coordinator.
Just an hour and half into their project on Saturday, volunteers had removed an entire deck from one house and torn down a metal shed, all of which completely filled two large dumpsters. And they weren’t done yet.
A group from Westminster Presbyterian tackled similar chores at two other Austin homes on Sunday. Homeowners only repay Habitat for Humanity for the cost of supplies — and they do so at a zero percent interest rate. Then the money goes back into more projects, according to Egan.
The labor, however, only comes at the cost of volunteers’ sweat.
Lori said the no-interest payments and five-year window to pay off the supplies allowed her and her mother to finally pursue this project. And where a deck has been removed, the Diesers will soon be able to enjoy a new porch.
