Before my family become involved with Habitat for Humanity Okanagan, the biggest challenge I was facing was living in a neighbourhood where there was lots of drugs use. My kids were scared to go outside and yet I couldn\u2019t save for a down payment to buy a home. <\/p>\n
I heard about Habitat from a friend and mentor so I applied. When I was approved for a Habitat Home, oh my gosh, I remember I was tying my daughter\u2019s skates and I was over the moon excited. It was amazing.
\nWe started packing boxes that night!<\/p>\n
Now that we are in the program, I am building equity in my house. That is huge. I am working and am saving RRSPs and my workplace also contributes. We have safe place to live and a home where my kids can bring friends. My children are now 17, 14 and 13.<\/p>\n
Habitat Families have to donate 500 hours of volunteer time to qualify for their program. I volunteered with my family and friends at the Penticton ReStore. I was able to take a team of family helpers with me and pumped out the hours. It was an amazing experience having everyone pitching in to provide my family with a home. The staff and volunteers at the store were amazing too. I had a house warming with friends and family to thank them for their support. <\/p>\n
If I meet anyone who is considering becoming a Habitat Family I\u2019d say, why wouldn\u2019t they consider it? Do it! Get your application in. It is a gift and a blessing. Don\u2019t be daunted by the volunteer hours you have to put in. You can get help. 500 hours as a single parent and full time worker is hard but getting a team together the hours just came off. <\/p>\n
I think our local Habitat is run by great people who support families. I can\u2019t say enough about Neil, Lorraine, Cheryl and Chris. The volunteers are amazing too!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Before my family become involved with Habitat for Humanity Okanagan, the biggest challenge I was facing was living in a neighbourhood where there was lots of drugs use. My kids were scared to go outside and yet I couldn\u2019t save for a down payment to buy a home. I heard about Habitat from a friend […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":2604,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[18,17],"class_list":["post-2622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-decent-housing","tag-safe-housing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.habitatforhumanityokanagan.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.habitatforhumanityokanagan.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.habitatforhumanityokanagan.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.habitatforhumanityokanagan.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.habitatforhumanityokanagan.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2622"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.habitatforhumanityokanagan.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2641,"href":"https:\/\/www.habitatforhumanityokanagan.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2622\/revisions\/2641"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.habitatforhumanityokanagan.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2604"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.habitatforhumanityokanagan.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.habitatforhumanityokanagan.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.habitatforhumanityokanagan.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}