Kerbers' Habitat habit leads to 21 years of volunteering

In 1989 Cy and Madonna Kerber were redoing their kitchen and wanted to donate their cabinets to Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity.

“A man came out and looked at them,” Madonna remembers. “He said that because they were custom made they couldn’t use them. After a long enjoyable conversation he said ‘But we can use you.’”

The Kerbers have been ardent Habitat volunteers and supporters ever since. Madonna became a weekly fixture at the front desk answering the phone, greeting visitors, speaking to civic groups and sharing her fresh-baked banana bread. She got in below the ground floor, when Twin Cities Habitat consisted of six people working out of a church basement and building just a handful of homes each year. She was part of the organization’s explosive growth in the 1990s. “You could feel the pulse of the whole thing happening - nationwide and then worldwide.”

The Kerber’s passion for Habitat began influencing their vacation choices. In the 1990s they traveled to Eagle Butte, South Dakota and Moorhead, Kentucky to be a part of Jimmy & Rosalynn Carter Work Projects. When the Red River flooded in 1997 they went to Fargo with Habitat to help out. They volunteered in Guatemala on a trip organized by Twin Cities Habitat. Then, in 2000, they made their first of nine winter getaways to Habitat for Humanity International in Americus, Georgia. They lived and volunteered alongside the other compassionate snowbirds who flock there to give back.

“We looked forward to it every year,” says Cy. “To keep meeting these people with such good hearts; we had the best vacations anyone could have ever had.”

Cy led tours of the Global Village in Americus; highlighting Habitat’s work worldwide. He also worked with college students who’d given up their spring breaks to volunteer in Georgia.

“You could put a hammer in their hand at the beginning of the day and they barely knew how to grip it,” Cy remembers. “By the end of the day they were swinging a mean hammer… It was a joy to be with them.”

On Sundays the Kerbers and other volunteers from Habitat for Humanity International traveled down the road to Planes, Georgia where President Carter led a bible study in the same church that he’d attended as a child. Afterwards they’d all go out to lunch – including the Carters.

The Kerbers have volunteered with Habitat around the country, around the world, and down the street from their own home – helping to build two houses for families in Chanhassen. It seems fitting that during a trip to Biloxi, Mississippi, the Kerbers went looking for the home they had lived in when they were first married only to find that it’d be torn down and in its place were two Habitat homes.

Over the past 21 years the Kerbers have given countless days to Habitat and received priceless memories. They were given one of the last hammers signed by Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity, before he died.

“Habitat is part of our life, part of who we are,” says Madonna. “We don’t like to sit around doing nothing with our time. We’ve got to do something that’s worthwhile.”

Both Madonna and Cy turn 80 in 2011. They remain active in a number of noble causes close to their home. In January of 2011 Madonna wrote Twin Cities Habitat a touching letter resigning her weekly volunteer shift at our front desk. She will be missed – and not just because of the banana bread.

Contributed by Matt Haugen