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September 2011 Newsletter

Franklin County Tech School
It’s the Keenan Home now

It's all yours!

It’s very livable and with an excellent Energy Star rating of 29:  no wonder Phyllis Keenan is smiling as she moves into her new home.  The fourth Habitat home on Stanley Street in Amherst completes a project that is a model for affordable, sustainable home design.

Habitat volunteers, family, and friends gathered there on July 31 to dedicate the home for Phyllis and her two sons.  Phyllis’s faith community, Northampton Friends Meeting, led the everyone in prayerful silence.  Jean Miller, family mentor, introduced Phyllis and described her journey to this day.  She had worked more than the required 250 hours in the construction of the house and “knows how to do everything.”  Phyllis cherished the opportunity to select fixtures, colors, and other details that make the home really hers.  She and the boys have already attracted birds and butterflies to the garden they have started.  The future looks beautiful.

The group of four homes has been built on land donated by Amherst College.  The construction team for the past four years has been led by Charlie Klem and Walt Kohler, who worked with student and community groups on weekends, along with a core of steady Tuesday and Thursday workers.  A long list of local businesses provided in-kind services and materials.  The result is impressive, and if you weren’t at the dedication, you really missed something!

Volunteers from Afar
A Working Vacation for Helpers from Pennsylvania

Habitat Volunteers from Pennsylvania

Sound like a dream vacation?  Spend hot days wielding hammers and saws and nights sleeping in an Amherst homeless shelter?  That was the choice of a group from a Pennsylvania church for a week in July.  They spent daylight hours working on Habitat homes in Montague City and Florence.  At night they slept at the winter warming center at the Amherst First Baptist Church.

Since 1993, members of Christ Covenant Church in Harleysville Pennsylvania have been making annual trips for congregational service and mission.  Most of the trips have involved building for Habitat projects, including some in Vermont, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Massachusetts.  This was their second year working at our Habitat site.

Many of those on this trip were retired, including Jan Marcheski, a Spanish teacher and designated spokesman for the group.  Others took time off from their jobs. Craig Ikeda is a chemical engineer;  Pete Nag is an information technology specialist;  Bill Hodson is an electrical engineer;  Luke Boguslaw is a college student.  They all used vacation time to work for Habitat.

Not all who came this year were repeats from last year.  But for those who were, it was especially satisfying to tour the Stanley Street homes in Amherst and meet the homeowner of the house they worked on last year. Marcheski said the group has enjoyed working for PV Habitat because of the hospitality and marvelous supervision--something they’ve not always found on their trips.  Then there’s an additional attraction:  the great ice cream they’ve found in the valley.  Along with community service, breaks for ice cream seem to be a church tradition.

The group was justifiably proud to see the progress on the homes they worked on.  And MJ Adams, PVH Executive Director, thanked them for speeding the important projects in our valley.

Crew Leaders
Crew Leaders Lead

Construction volunteers are the heart of Pioneer Valley Habitat.  They do the work.  But many of them have little experience in construction;  they need guidance and supervision.   A site supervisor is always in charge on the scene.  Another essential cog in the wheel, however, is the crew leader who assigns the tasks of the day and guides the work of the volunteers.  In a typical work session, one supervisor and two crew leaders oversee the efforts of eight or so volunteers.

Pioneer Valley Habitat conducts a training session for prospective crew leaders every six or seven weeks.  Sessions are always held on Sundays, between about 11:30 and 4 o’clock.  The session is conducted by an experienced crew leader.  Topics include procedures, safety policies, and contact information.  The tentative dates of the next scheduled training sessions are October 30 and December 11.  Sessions are held at active construction sites. The October 30 session will be at the build site at Garfield Avenue in Florence.

About thirty people have attended recent training sessions.  We are looking to add to the roster.  If you are interested in becoming a crew leader, we urge you to attend one of these training sessions. Some experience in construction is helpful, but it’s not required.  The most important qualification is people skills.   A crew leader is typically assigned one day of work each month.

Spotlight on Volunteers
Why Do I Work for PVH?

by Peter Elbow

The short answer is George Goodwin.  The day I retired from the UMass English Department George put me in his crosshairs.  I didn’t have a chance;  George always bags his prey.  He dragooned me onto the board.  But evening meetings:  they’re not my favorite thing.  I didn’t last beyond my first three year term.

Before I joined, I had been looking forward to hammering nails and sawing boards.  I’d had a job as carpenter’s helper when I was an adolescent and even built a rowboat in high school shop.  My wife and I still sleep on a crude platform bed I made. “Old world craftsmanship” is the phrase my wife throws at me when something doesn’t fit.  My motto is “Measure once, cut twice.”

But after I fell off the board, George had other ideas.  PVH needed an editor for the newsletter and my field was writing.   I could have edited and also gone out into the fresh air to help build, but I was busy on an ambitious book about writing so I settled for one job.  My relief from trying to write all day was to be involved in more writing.

Originally I was fingered as genuine editor:  help plan stories and organize volunteer reporters.  But this was too much for my organizational skills--and it also involved evening meetings.  I had risen to the level of my incompetence but the organization was smart enough to demote me.  I was allowed to stick with the minimal job of receiving drafts and seeing if they needed a bit of rewriting or editing;  someone else even did the formatting.

I learned to make a nice offer to reporters:  “I know you have a lot of other things you need to do in your life and most of you don’t think of yourself as writers.  Feel free to send me very rough copy with all the info.  I’ll take it from there.”

There’s a professional irony here.  My specialty in my field is generating words, not editing them.  I’ve been able to show many people how to get lots of words and thoughts down on the page without worrying about whether they are correct or good--and then they discover that there’s good stuff in what may feel like mess.  But revising and editing is where I have no expertise.  Fortunately the reporters are very good and I have very little to do.  And when I’m stuck, I ask my wife.  And when we both screw up, MJ fixes it.  

But none of this explains why I’ve kept on working for Habitat for almost ten years.  The answer is PVH:  the people, especially MJ, and what the organization does.  I feel fortunate to play even this small role in an organization that has so brilliantly helped volunteers and prospective owners to collaborate and create beautiful affordable houses.

Giving to Habitat
Build Your Legacy

When you give to Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity through your estate or long-term financial plans, you are building your legacy and ensuring that later generations of families in the Pioneer Valley can secure decent, safe, and affordable housing.  Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity Builds simple homes in partnership with families who couldn’t otherwise own a home.  We rely on volunteer labor and donated services, and we sell our homes to specifically chosen families.  They have to meet certain financial criteria for below-market cost--and with a 0% mortgage.  These homes provide our hardworking Habitat families with a solid foundation in which to raise their children and become fully invested members of their community.

We hope that you will consider making a gift to Pioneer Valley Habitat in your will or living trust--or consider making PVHH a beneficiary of your life insurance or annuity contracts or retirement benefits.  If you do, it will help you build your legacy and meet your estate planning goals (including the income and estate tax benefits of giving to charity).  At the same time you’ll be helping PVHH build its legacy of affordable home ownership for hardworking families.

The options are varied and numerous.  Naming PVHH in your will, for example, is a great way to make a simple, flexible gift from your estate.  If you are interested in the income tax benefits of a gift to PVHH, it might be that a lifetime gift in a Charitable Remainder or Lead Trust might be right for you.

Only you and your advisers (such as your attorney or accountant) can determine which type of gift is right for you.  But whatever form your gift takes, you will know that it will be put to good use supporting PVHH's ongoing and ever important mission.

For more information on planned giving options, please contact us at (413) 586-5430.  We would be happy to work with you and with your advisers in crafting the most efficient and rewarding way for you to build your legacy.

Thank-you Mayor Higgins!

Lynne Wallace and Mayor Clare Higgins at the Massachusetts Housing Institute.  Mayor Higgins was awarded the first Housing Hero Award by Massachusetts Housing Partnership in June 2011.

Mayor Higgins is a long time support of Habitat’s work. During her tenure as Mayor– PVH partnered with Smith Vocational High School to help build the Habitat homes and the City provided PVH with land and CPA funds to help in the building of our Habitat homes.

Fall Partner Family Info Session

Learn what every potential Habitat homeowner needs to know to see if you are or can become eligible to partner with us. An info session is the first step to homeownership with Pioneer Valley Habitat. The next session will be on Sunday, October 30th at 4pm at First Churches, 129 Main Street in Northampton.

Thank-you to newsletter contributors Kay Berenson, Richard Delisle, Peter Elbow, Doris McLeod, Leo Sartori, and Michael Simolo.

Thank-you to Océ Imagistics Inc for continued generosity while providing maintenance on our copy machine.

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© 2012 Pioneer Valley Habitat for Humanity. You may contact us at admin@pvhabitat.org with any questions or comments.