Moving can be stressful.
Especially for Brenda Wesley, because her new house isn’t finished being built yet, and her current lease is up in July.
“I’m praying,’” she said, that it’ll be done in time.
Wesley wasn’t planning on building her own new home, until one day last fall when she saw a commercial on TV for Alachua Habitat for Humanity.
She didn’t know anything about the program, she said, but she started looking into it.
By October she had gone to a local meeting and submitted an application to have her house built.
In January, she got a letter of approval in the mail.
“I am so excited,” she said, “I am speechless, and I’m nervous—all balled into one.”
Trinity United Methodist Church, 4000 NW 53rd Avenue, Gainesville, and First United Methodist Church, 17405 NW U.S, Highway 441, High Springs, partnered with Alachua Habitat for Humanity to sponsor the project.
Bill and Debbie Herring of Fla. Homes, Inc., became involved through Trinity United. Bill has donated his services as a professional contractor, and this is the forth Habitat house the Herrings have worked on with their church.
It is the fifth Habitat house Trinity United has sponsored.
Wesley is a job coach at Santa Fe High School. She works with students with learning disabilities to help them find local jobs when they graduate.
She is a single mother of two, a 23-year-old daughter and a 14-year-old son.
At the time she applied to get a house with Habitat, she and her children were all living in her two- bedroom, one-bathroom apartment in Newberry.
“It’s small,” she said, “really small. I don’t have a dining room really, my table is just pushed up against a wall.”
Since she applied, her daughter moved out, and had a daughter of her own.
Wesley will move into the new three-bedroom, two-bathroom home with her son.
The house is going to be 1,352 square feet. She said she’s most excited about having her own washer and dryer again.
“Laundromats are expensive,” she said.
Volunteers began construction on April 24, and the house should be completed by late June or early July, according to Debbie Herring; just in time for Wesley to move before her lease ends.
So far, $37,500 in donations was collected to fund the project, she said, but to finish, about $22,000 to $22,500 more is needed.
Several local businesses have donated materials and services including Sandvik Mining and Construction, Sherwin Williams, Hitchcock’s and Fla. Homes, Inc., of Alachua, Jim Brown Signature Roofing of High Springs and B&C Crane Services of Gainesville.
Conestoga’s Restaurant in Alachua and Subway of High Springs have both donated lunch for volunteers as well.
Debbie Herring mentioned that more lunch donations to feed all the hard workers would be especially helpful.
Usually about 20 to 25 volunteers come out to work every Thursday, said Bill Herring, and about 40 to 45 are there every Saturday.
Getting projects like this done in such hard economic times has proved more challenging, he said, but its great to see so many volunteers coming out every week to help.
Nearly every aspect of the house from the ground up was or will be constructed by volunteers.
Since it was founded in 1986, Alachua Habitat for Humanity has built more than 100 homes in local communities. Its homes are sold to families at no profit, and are financed with affordable loans, according to its Web site.
The program continues to benefit the community after a house is built by using the new homeowner’s monthly mortgage payments to fund the next project.
“Speaking not only to other single mothers,” Wesley said, “but to all parents who are looking to purchase a home, Habitat is the way to go.”
It’s just like anybody else building a house, she explained. You get to pick things like the flooring, paint, counter tops and cabinets.
“That was the best part — putting it all together.”
Her son, she said, is excited to be back in High Springs where all his friends are. “We don’t know anybody in Newberry,” she added. “And we’ll be closer to family, too.”
She said she was nervous about the whole thing at first, but Habitat for Humanity is awesome.
“All you feel is love.”