Katrina Assistance

Here is the floor plan, and a front and side elevation of the home we will be framing.

We are proud to announce that CWHfH will be participating in Habitat International’s “Home in a Box” (HIB) program. We have recently seen that the suffering from hurricane Katrina is anything but over, the damage anything but righted. Thousands are still homeless, over one hundred people are unaccounted for, hospitals and schools are still closed. Last October, Habitat for Humanity International launched our “Home in a Box” (HIB) program. Local Habitat affiliates frame homes in sixteen foot sections and ship them to the hurricane zone for assembly. To date more than 14,000 volunteers have built over 400 homes. Our local affiliate, Central Wisconsin Habitat for Humanity is proud to be active in the HIB initiative. During the month of September we will be building one of ten homes due to be shipped to Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Other affiliates, literally from Maine to California will also be framing homes. Please join us in helping our neighbors in our own small way. No experience is necessary, all we require is a great attitude. We will be working at 320 Fifth Avenue, Stevens Point, on Friday September 8^th and 15^th from 12:30 to 4:30, and Saturday the 9^th and 16^th from 9 to 4:30. On Saturday September 23^rd, with the help of Shirley Egner and the UWSP woman’s basketball team, we will load the home into a trailer graciously provided by Yellow Transportation for the trip to Hattiesburg.The HIB program has affiliates across the country frame all the exterior and interior walls for a home, and then ship the components to affiliates that were ravaged by Katrina. Volunteers in those locations will then erect the components and finish the home. We, along with nine other affiliates literally stretching from Maine to California, are building with the Hattiesburg Mississippi affiliate. Our HIB needs to arrive in Hattiesburg as close to September 30^th as possible. Thank you for your support.

Our Home in a Box project got off to a wonderful start thanks to our volunteers. Bob had the build well organized, Jack, Rhonda and Bruce worked on the lay out (no easy task, making sure the 10 foot panels fit together correctly in Mississippi), Denny, Tom, Greg, Cindy, Jean, Scott, Eugene, Dennis, Grace, Stan, Martin, Kay, Chris, Kale, Kyle and others nailed, carried, cut, assembled…… and it wasn’t long and our first panel was completed. By day's end we went from a pile of lumber to more than 16 walls panels completed.

We will be working again this weekend on Friday the 15th and on Saturday the 16th. Then the following Saturday we will pack the semi and send the home on its way.

Stop by and lend a hand, and stay tuned for the schedule as we resume work on Third Avenue.

Our Home in a Box is finished and ready to be……. boxed! We enjoyed a great volunteer turnout from UWSP’s Pray-Sims Hall, the Campus Habitat Chapter, and the Interior Architecture group, thank you all. Friday afternoon we assembled a couple panels and did the layout for the remaining panels. Then Saturday morning, under threatening skies, we hammered together the remaining panels and carted them off to the backyard. We included several studs that our volunteers and students from UWSP had signed. The afternoon was spent shuffling the panels into the proper order and doing a quality control inspection. After performing a few tweaks the Home was finished.

We are taking Friday September 22^nd off, and will begin loading the semi on Saturday the 23^rd at 9:00, with the help of Coach Shirley Egner and the UWSP Women’s Basketball team. Our thanks to Terry Nugent at Yellow Transportation for arranging the donation of the semi.

Thanks again to all of you that enable us to help those in need in Mississippi, as well as right here in our backyard. Together we can make a difference.

Our “Home in a Box” is in the semi and already to begin its trip to Mississippi thanks to Coach Shirley Egner, the UWSP Women’s Basketball team, and other volunteers from UWSP. The gang arrived early, all bright eyed and ready to go. After a strategy session lead by Bob, it was time to start carrying the walls. The crew barely broke a sweat lugging the panels from the backyard to the gals in the semi who then stacked them in place. After moving the panels and the extra lumber, the semi was buttoned up by the Yellow Transportation crew (thanks again for the truck!), and the team finally sat in one place long enough for a group photo.

“Thank you” to all that participated, and enabled our HfH Chapter to bring help, hope and a home to a family will never meet, a family that will never forget us.

What follows is from our initial foray into hurricane relief from the Fall of 2005.

Habitat for Humanity is taking the initiative to help those affected by Katrina. The death and destruction is staggering, and the recovery and rebuild will be very lengthy. Habitat for Humanity International has responded to that need with “Operation Home Delivery”. Central Wisconsin Habitat for Humanity’s involvement in this program is in the most preliminary of phases. What I envision is a group from CWHfH traveling to an area of need for a week this late fall, or winter. I have no idea exactly when or where, as the location and timing will be scheduled by HfHI. We may or may not have much lead time in our “deployment”. I have no idea what conditions we will encounter, but it may make a camping trip look like a week at the Ritz. If this comes to fruition we will try and raise funding from our friends and neighbors, but the volunteers may bear some of the costs themselves. I look forward to long, arduous days. This will be no vacation. I anticipate blood and sweat, and I know there will be tears of joy.

Here is the latest:

What I need from you is three things:

- Please give me any and all of your thoughts and ideas on how we may execute this mission of hope,

- Please let me know if you seriously believe this is a mission you would be able to go on,

- Please let me know if you would be able to donate to CWHfH.

- Please send me your thoughts and insight.

I anticipate that any donations in excess of those needed for our mission would be used right here in our own backyard, to continue our mission of hope here in Portage County.

Again, this is all very preliminary, but there is an awful need. Our mission may well be a pipe dream, but it also may well be a dream come true for some of the victims of Katrina.

I am reminded of a report I heard on Fox News, of a man who gave some his gasoline to a young mother and her infant child so that they would be able to escape the nightmare. His response to "why?" was, “How could I pass up the blessing of being able to help someone".

Thank you, and God Bless.

Tom Macak

CWHfH, Volunteer Coordinator

CWHfH did receive the following from Habitat International concerning our offer to help at some point:

Habitat for Humanity International Disaster Response
Operation Home Delivery

Habitat for Humanity International would like to thank you again for offering to help those affected by Hurricane Katrina. Currently, Habitat is performing damage and needs assessments in communities along the Gulf Coast , communicating with affiliates, homeowners and other partners to get a better understanding of the housing situation and conditions in these disaster-struck areas.

We are looking at a three-tiered approach called “Operation Home Delivery.” Operation Home Delivery will center firstly around efforts to help get Habitat affiliates that were hardest hit by Katrina back in operating condition and prepared to implement a sizeable response in their communities. Secondly, we hope to serve as a catalyst with other organizations, corporations, foundations and governments to bring people together to talk about low-income housing and recovery on a scale that Habitat alone would be unable to accomplish. And thirdly, we will implement our homebuilding project: Affiliates, churches, corporations, other groups and individuals will come together to build house frames and panels in their own communities outside the impacted area; the pre-built home will then be taken apart, packed into a container and shipped to an affected community along the Gulf in Louisiana, Mississippi or Alabama to be rebuilt as soon as the appropriate infrastructure is in place.

Habitat plans to pilot this “home in a box” project at the end of this month in Jackson, Miss. Through this component of Operation Home Delivery, you may be able to volunteer in your own community to help the families who lost their homes and so much more. Please check our Web site, www.habitat.org, later this month to learn more about how you can organize a build in your community.

Additional volunteering opportunities will become available later in the year or early 2006, when conditions on the ground allow for the permanent house reconstruction to begin and affiliates start unfolding their “homes in a box.” If your interests are to volunteer in immediate relief-oriented activities, we suggest you contact the American Red Cross, The Salvation Army or any other reputable relief agency.

The response to the tragedy has been tremendous, and your patience as we finalize the logistics of our long-term response is appreciated. Our e-mail boxes are overflowing with questions, offers to help and pleas for assistance. You can greatly assist us by NOT responding to this e-mail, but rather by referring to our Web site, www.habitat.org, for answers to questions at this time. Rest assured that we will be sending e-mail updates regularly to all subscribers, and as more information becomes available about Habitat's efforts in hurricane-affected areas, we will send you messages and post the information online. Thank you for your vital support.

Habitat for Humanity International
Disaster Response Office
www.habitat.org/disaster/

Thank you for your interest in and commitment to Habitat for Humanity’s Operation Home Delivery (OHD) and Habitat home in a box. The OHD management office has received your offer of support. Please consider this letter as confirmation of receipt. At this time, supply far exceeds the affected area’s ability to accept help. Clearly there are families in need, but serviced lots are in short supply; many areas are still boiling their drinking water, and clearing rubble. Please be patient – the OHD office is striving to appropriately steward your gift as HFHI would for any other partner and assist these families affected by the hurricanes.

HFHI understands that Central Wisconsin Habitat for Humanity is interested in partial sponsorships. You and your board are willing to build wall panels with the help of another affiliate. HFHI will seek to identify an appropriate partner and notify you when a match can be made.

As this nation continues to face the reality of invisible poverty made glaringly visible, the OHD team thanks you for your dedication to Habitat’s mission not only in your community, but everywhere that God’s children live. Please keep the families, staff, volunteers and communities of the Gulf Coast in your thoughts and prayers.

If you have additional questions, please contact Dick Weber at 800-422-4828 extension 4411 or rweber@habitat.org.

In partnership,

Kenneth J. Meinert
SVP, Operation Home Delivery .

Dear Colleagues,

For the last few weeks, the staff at the Operation Home Delivery (OHD) management office has provided you with information as it exists regarding the Habitat home in box program. We realize that many of you want more details than are available and that has been a source of frustration for you. I want you to know that we understand that and are working to create the underlying policies, systems and procedures that will ultimately provide the details you need.

We are working through a huge amount of offers to build containerized homes. Frankly, the supply side is severely outpacing the demand. Clearly there are families in need, but serviced lots are in short supply at the moment. Many areas are still boiling their drinking water and clearing rubble. There are limited public services and curfews. In Mississippi alone, they are clearing 7 million cubic yards of debris and are about two-thirds done.

We know everyone is anxious to participate in the Habitat home in a box program and wants more details. Perhaps we can ease some frustration by presenting some current realities. As we have mentioned before, the Habitat home in a box portion of the Operation Home Delivery program was never intended to be a long-term rebuilding solution. It is Phase I of an overall program designed to get building ‘homes on the ground’ as soon as possible. We have said that we anticipate building only about 250 homes in a box by the end of the year.

Already, more than 180 of these homes have been produced and we have about 50 affiliates who have indicated (through PartnerNet sign up forms) to build multiple homes. While at one time we envisioned building many more containerized homes and storing them until needed, as we have communicated before, it is not practical given the complex issues of land acquisition, infrastructure and family selection.

In order to control the level of containerized homes in storage, we are now asking for containerized homes as they can be used by affected affiliates. We will continue to catalogue affiliate interest in home sponsorship as indicated through the PartnerNet site. Eventually, we will move into Phase II, where we build houses on the ground. There are thousands and thousands of houses needed. And though we are not the only solution to this crisis, our work alone will take several years. With your support, we are committed to seeing it through.

As you know, the response to our public relations efforts has far exceeded our expectations. We never could have imagined that the Habitat home in a box program would have drawn unprecedented support from the NBC Today Show, the NCAA, the Emmy Awards, Major League Baseball and the President and First Lady of the United States, to name only a few. These are all very positive and very important relationships that we hope will add value to our ministry for years to come.

Yet, with all of this publicity and national activity, we realize it has been hard for many of you to wait on the sidelines and manage volunteer and donor expectations. (After all, you are the ‘doers’ of Habitat.) We apologize for that outcome, but hope you can see the large impact the ministry is gaining nationwide, and hope you are doing everything you can turn this national spotlight into a local benefit.

So how can you plan on participating in the OHD program? We have outlined the sponsorship information previously but realize you still have many questions. We continue to hammer out the details and hope to have more answers soon.

I hope you can appreciate this is new ground for all of us. It is difficult to anticipate all of the questions more than 1700 affiliates might have, so please don’t expect all the answers at once. This is an evolving process with many moving parts. We encourage you to be as flexible as possible and keep in mind the big picture.

In the meantime, as you field questions from volunteers and local donors, we encourage you to do what you do best – respond in a way that will most benefit your affiliate and serve families living in substandard housing in your service area.

Upcoming Special Projects

You will likely see more high-profile events during the next several weeks. While we understand that these events can sometimes make your job more difficult on the local level in having to restrain volunteers and donors, we again encourage you to turn these issues to your advantage. Across the nation, affiliates are tapping into and leveraging local enthusiasm for Operation Home Delivery. Please send your innovative ideas to OHDQuestions@habitat.org and we will share them with other affiliates through the weekly updates.

Ken Meinert
Operation Home Delivery Management Office