Habitat vows to never stop building

Reed Anderson waits on Dale Underwood for a piece of siding trim Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at a Habitat for Humanity house under construction on the Gallup's north side. A mystery theater fundraiser for the home will be held June 13 & 14, 2008 at 7pm in the Ranch Kitchen. Ninety tickets are available each night for $25 each. For tickets: (505) 863-3743 [photo by Daniel Zollinger / Independent]

By Elizabeth Hardin-Burrola
Staff writer

GALLUP — JoAnn Benenati has a goal she tries to keep in mind: Never stop building, and build a house a year.

That goal hasn’t been reached yet, but perhaps in a few years it will be a reality for Benanati and Habitat for Humanity of Gallup. The nonprofit organization is scheduled to complete its third house in Gallup this summer and is already making plans to break ground on its fourth.

Benenati, president of the local Habitat board, and Bill Bright, the volunteer project manager for the third house, talked recently about the progress of the current building project, fundraising projects, and plans for the next Habitat home.

Benenati and Bright were at Habitat’s latest building site, on a hillside near the corner of East Wilson Avenue and High Street, where Bright is supervising the construction of a four-bedroom, 1,300-square-foot home. Habitat’s partner family, the eight- member Thompson family, is hoping to move in by the end of the summer, but that may depend on the number of community members willing to help at the site.

“I’d love to have them in before school starts,” said Benenati, who added that the six Thompson children have already picked out their future bedrooms.

Although Habitat broke ground on the home in March 2007, paperwork delays pushed the start of construction back to August. The rocky and muddy hillside location presented a number of construction challenges as well.
“We hit coal, we hit rock, we hit everything on this site,” Benenati said.

Rising fuel costs are creating a current financial challenge, Bright said. Although the price of construction materials has risen somewhat over the last few years, he said, increasing fuel costs are causing shipping charges to skyrocket.

Bright expects the house to cost Habitat between $60,000 and $70,000 to build with an appraisal value of about $90,000. Although it is modest in size, the house has a number of energy saving features to keep utilities bills low and several design and construction features that will make it low maintenance. It was also built with a system to prevent radon gas — common in this area — from leaking up from the crawl space.

According to Bright, volunteers are needed every Wednesday and Saturday, from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Although he had about a dozen regular volunteers showing up through the winter months, Bright said assistance has dropped off with the beginning of summer so the project could use more help. Volunteers do not need to have any construction experience or skills, he explained, and they don’t have to bring any tools.

In addition, Bright said donations of food for the Wednesday volunteers and garage sale items for a weekly Saturday “Re-Store Garage Sale” would be helpful. Norma Garcia of the Eagle Cafe donates a dozen burritos for the Saturday volunteers, he said, but the Wednesday crew would welcome a food donation also. Habitat resells donations of new or “gently used” home fixtures, building materials, and household items during its Saturday garage sale at the building site, and volunteers are willing to pick up donations. Habitat is also looking for someone with computer expertise to help get donated computer equipment up and running.

Schoolchildren from Roosevelt Elementary School have inspired Habitat volunteers to reach out to local schools with partnership program. According to Benenati, several classes at Roosevelt raised money on their own to donate to Habitat and that grew into an all-school project.

Recently a number of the school’s classes walked across town to visit the construction site and to see the front door and porch they financially sponsored.

Benenati expects Habitat to break ground on the next project not long after the Thompsons’ house is completed.
“The goal is never stop building and build a house a year,” she said.

Information: Bill Bright: (505) 722-4226, Habitat for Humanity Gallup: http://www.habitatgallup.org