National Women Build Week Recap

Guest blog by Julia Brauchle, 
Twin Cities Habitat Staff 

Earlier this month, Habitat for Humanity celebrated its 10th annual National Women Build Week, which invited women to devote at least one day to help build decent and affordable housing in their local communities. More than 17,000 women from 300 Habitat affiliates in all 50 states participated in Women Build projects last week. The week is sponsored by Lowe’s Home Improvement, who donated nearly $2 million to support National Women Build Week.

Here at Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity, women worked alongside homeowner Annette to complete essential repairs on her home and garage. Annette and her family have been living in their home in St. Paul since 1999. Annette was recently widowed and now cares for her children and grandchildren, and with her limited income, struggled to both care for her family and keep up with her home repairs.

During a National Women Build Week celebration on Thursday morning, Annette thanked the volunteers for their time, expressed her excitement to work alongside them, and eagerness to give back to her community in other ways after this project was complete. President and CEO of Twin Cities Habitat, Sue Haigh, commented how she loved the empowerment that women feel when they get on a build site. Lowe’s employee and regular Women Build volunteer Barb Stahl shared Lowe’s motto with the volunteer group: Love where you live. “Habitat takes that and just runs with it”, she said.

In addition to volunteers from Lowe’s, we were joined by Wells Fargo employees, Fit2Praise, a Christian fitness and nutrition program, and many other women from the community.

Thank you to Lowe’s and all of the volunteers that got involved during National Women Build Week! With this home repair project under their toolbelt, Women Build will move on to homebuilding project this summer and fall. Contact womenbuild@tchabitat.org or 612-305-7162 to get involved!