Habitat Staff & Volunteers Enjoy a Community Volunteer Day Painting the Fence at the Key West Lighthouse

At Habitat for Humanity of Key West and the Lower Florida Keys, staff and volunteers work hard to further Habitat’s mission of helping local families build, repair and maintain places to call home.

Driven by the vision that everyone deserves a decent place to live and the shortage of affordable housing in the Keys, Habitat for Humanity of Key West and the Lower Florida Keys was formed in 1993 as an affiliate organization of Habitat for Humanity International. Families and individuals in need of a hand up partner with Habitat to help build their own homes alongside volunteers and pay an affordable mortgage. Currently Habitat is working on completing a 16-unit affordable homeownership development, which will bring their total of homes built to 61.

Habitat for Humanity focuses not just on building homes, but also on building strong communities. Research on the impact of affordable homeownership shows postive outcomes for both the families housed and the communities at large. Achieving the dream of homeownership, and the process of working side-by-side with neighbors on each other’s homes, helps to build a stronger community that’s tangibly invested in one another.

It is this emphasis on strong community that recently inspired Kristina Welburn, the Executive Director of Habitat Lower Keys, to implement a program to give her staff members a new opportunity -- once every other month the staff will spend a half day volunteering for a different non-profit organization of their choice and invite other volunteers to join them. “I thought it would be a great team-building exercise for the staff, while also forging bonds with sister non-profits and doing work to benefit various aspects of our wonderful Lower Keys community,” stated Ms. Welburn.

Last week for their first community volunteer day, the Habitat staff and some of their volunteers got together to repaint the fence at the Key West Lighthouse & Keepers Quarters Museum, one of the landmark museums operated by the Key West Art & Historical Society. It was a hot day but volunteers worked quickly and had a great time doing it. “It was great to participate in something that had such an immediate, visible impact on the community,” said Terence White, who works as the office manager for Habitat. “It was also really nice to be out of the office and to get to experience another aspect of the work Habitat does. And I got to climb to the top of the lighthouse!”

Staff members were joined by volunteers from the Coast Guard, future Habitat homeowners and regular Habitat volunteers from the community. Michael Gieda, Executive Director of the Key West Art & Historical Society, and Kim Livingston, Membership Coordinator, were both on-hand to thank volunteers and supply a delicious lunch of Duetto’s pizza. “On behalf of KWAHS, I cannot thank Habitat and the other volunteers enough for cleaning, prepping and painting the fence at the Lighthouse. It was a vast improvement!” stated Gieda.

Staff members at Habitat are currently picking the next organization to volunteer with and are all looking forward to their next community volunteer day.