From House 1 to House 53 and counting.

It all started with a case of Habititis.
 
In 1983, Janice Nigh’s son and his confirmation class went to Americus, Georgia, to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity International. “When they came back, there seemed to be a transformation in that group of kids,” says Nigh. “They weren’t real close friends before they left, but they were afterwards. And they felt like they accomplished a lot, working on the houses.”
 
Her son’s experience was so compelling that the following year, the whole Nigh family returned to Americus for another week of volunteering. The result: “I got what I call Habititis,” Nigh says. “I was addicted to it.”
 
Upon returning, she and her husband volunteered at Milwaukee Habitat. They soon found out that a group of Sheboygan-area residents were thinking of starting a Habitat affiliate for Sheboygan County. They got involved, and Sheboygan County Habitat for Humanity made its debut in the spring of 1993. Nigh was its first president.
 
The first few months were anything but easy. Per Habitat International guidelines, the new Habitat had to raise a total of $3,000 from 15 different sources. “That was a lot of money, considering we could build a house for $35,000,” Nigh says. “It was hard, because people kept saying, ‘come back to us when you build the first house.’” Despite setbacks, Nigh and the board kept going. “I just had the vision of seeing that first house,” she says.
 
Vinyl Plastics Inc. (VPI) of Sheboygan donated $35,000, thanks to a Nigh connection, and the new affiliate broke ground for its first home in the spring of 1993. Individuals and corporate sponsors, including VPI and Rust Engineering, supported the project with donations of land, money, and people power. A Blitz Build, a strategy that completes the exterior of the home in a week, jump-started the home, located on South 27th St. in Sheboygan. The home was dedicated in the fall.
 
In its first two years of existence, the new affiliate built three homes. Millard Fuller, the founder of Habitat for Humanity International, dedicated the third home, which was built in Sheboygan Falls. “He nailed the numbers on the house for us,” says Nigh, who completed her term as president in 1995, then became a Wisconsin state volunteer for the international organization. Even though Nigh was working full time as a computer systems analyst, she traveled around the state to help new affiliates get started.
 
Over the last 32 years, Habitat Lakeside has completed 52 homes and is building three more this year. House No. 53 broke ground in August on the Sheboygan’s north side. It’s all part of a plan to build five homes a year by 2027, and it proves that some things never change. Sheboygan County had a need for affordable housing back in 1993, and it still does. In Wisconsin, the median income for renters is $41,300 a year, and the income needed to buy a mid-priced home is twice that, at $82,000.
 
Habitat Lakeside’s need for donations and volunteers remains as strong as the need for affordable housing. Nigh, for one, would like to see more young people aware of and involved in the organization. “You have a lot more options than we did,” says Nigh, noting that the organization was launched well before the dawn of social media. (We second that notion: Please follow us on Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok, and if you want to participate in the most enjoyable volunteer gig in the area, sign up to volunteer at our ReStore.)

One thing that hasn’t changed is our mission. Seeking to put God’s love in action, we bring people together to build homes, community, and hope. “We could not have accomplished any of this without the support of God,” Nigh says. A force, one might say, even greater than Habititis.

A Sheboygan Press article from June 5, 1994, covering the building of Habitat Lakeside's first house, from Janice Nigh's scrapbook.