The following is a report from The Elkhart Truth.
Volunteers from Winnebago Industries joined Habitat for Humanity of Elkhart County on Tuesday for a Women Build home construction project.
A team of about 50 volunteers from across the Winnebago Industries brands constructed the interior and exterior walls for the future home of Carmen Calderon.
Calderon on Tuesday expressed gratitude for all of the people who showed up to volunteer.
“We’re getting the walls together,” Calderon said. “Basically, the bones of the house, so we’ll build those here and then we’ll transfer them to my lot today and unload them there.”
The volunteers were split into four groups: interior walls, exterior walls, windows and doors. Calderon worked on building the windows.
Habitat for Humanity CEO Greg Conrad said the Winnebago Industries partnership on the Women Build is significant because it accelerates the construction of homes.
“Traditionally, we have mainly built just three- or four-bedroom homes, but what we have found is the marketplace has changed, so we have a number of our families that we build with who may just be a single person with one child, or even a single vet, someone who’s younger who doesn’t have a family,” Conrad said. “Our board looked at our overall mission of making sure that people have a decent, affordable place to shelter and decided there’s no reason to say that we have to spend the money and use the space for a bigger house. Let’s look at, are there times where a two-bedroom, one-anda- half bathroom house will fulfill the mission, be less costly for us to build and be less costly for the homeowner to maintain.”
Chelsea Kreigh, regional community impact partner for Winnebago, said that without corporate partnerships and support from the community, the houses cannot be built.
“We’ve met so many awesome homeowners,” Kreigh said. “And like Greg said, a lot of them this year are single mothers, and as a single mother myself, I know how hard it is to try to provide the best life for your kids and when you feel like you finally have a partner through Habitat who is advocating for you, who is helping you build all of these skills to have a successful life and then you have these partners from the community coming in also having your back, I feel like that’s what people need.”
Calderon is a single mother herself and she said this new home will provide stability for her and her daughter. With rising rent costs, it has become harder to afford renting a home, so having a stable mortgage cost will help, Calderon said.
Calderon also said the new home will also give a backyard space for her daughter.
“With renting, you don’t always have a backyard first,” Calderon said. “And it’s just not your yard. We’ll put a play set up and decorate it and make it into our own space. I’m really excited.”
Read the full report from The Elkhart Truth here. Please note there is a paywall.
