Veterans volunteer together to rehab Habitat home in Robbinsdale

Back in 2012, Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity launched its Veterans Initiative. Our goal was twofold: partner with more Veterans and their families on our programs and services and engage more Veterans as volunteers. We guessed that the dedicated men and women of our Armed Forces would like more opportunities to continue to serve and give back after their active service days are over. We were right. In the past year, 1,000 Veterans have volunteered on Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity sites.

On Saturday, January 25, we had five Veterans come out to volunteer on a rehab house in Robbinsdale. Some non-Veterans also volunteered with the crew that day. The group cleaned up the site, shoveled the sidewalks, spackled and sanded walls and trim, painted doors, caulked seams and completed several other small tasks. 

Like all Habitat homes, this house will be sold to a family that is required to put in hundreds of hours of sweat equity, complete extensive homeownership training courses, and pay Habitat's unique 0% mortgage. Their mortgage payments to Habitat will help to build more homes for more families to buy.

Among the Veterans were two National Guard members, two Vietnam Veterans, and a Navy Veteran who served during the Gulf War. Alex Schueller (who served in the Marines) is Twin Cities Habitat's Veteran Outreach Coordinator. He says the Veterans enjoyed themselves and talked about their military careers and some of the funnier things that had happened to them.

"It was a very enjoyable time to learn about other Veterans' experiences because all of our experiences in the military differ from each other," says Alex. "With the turnout and success of our Veteran build I hope that next time we have one we can get more people to sign up and make a connection to our community and other Veterans (plus you get a delicious lunch)."

Alex is now working on coordinating a build day in conjunction with the Wounded Warrior Project. Keep an eye out on the volunteer list for all upcoming Veteran builds. They will be posted an publicized as their scheduled.