How Imagination Builds a Habitat House

By Habitat Lakeside staff

A few weeks ago, we attended a local family event and brought along a project: Collages. The frame: Post caps repurposed from the ReStore. The backdrop: Pieces of corrugated plastic, reclaimed from old Habitat Lakeside event signs, cut into squares by Packaging Systems of Wisconsin, and covered with stick-on wallpaper sourced from the Sheboygan ReStore. The collage elements: Whimsical decorative items, including googly eyes, puff balls, pipe cleaners, and beads, donated by Michaels. 

The results: Out-of-this-world creative. One young person crafted an ocean scene, complete with blue water and fanciful fishes. Another used the background of flowered wallpaper to make an aviary. Others spelled out names, fashioned pipe cleaner hearts, spelled out messages with lettered beads, and used googly eyes to make a classic smiley face. The finished collages sparkled with creativity and imagination.

Witnessing this beauty sparked by the human imagination made us realize how much we need creativity and imagination to carry out our mission: Making sure everyone has a safe, decent place to live.

Habitat for Humanity International itself is built on the creative premise of partnership housing: People in need of shelter join in the process of building their homes with volunteers, then buying the homes thanks to a financial tool that tailors a zero-interest mortgage to the homebuyer’s budget. The innovative thinking that launched this global organization continues today as Habitat affiliates all over the country come up with novel ways to combat this tough housing market. Solutions include townhomes, multi-family dwellings, and houses made partly with prefabricated elements.

Then there’s the creativity and imagination of our home buyers. Kewanna, who just closed on a beautiful Habitat home for her and her four children, imagined what her children’s future would look like if they had a home of their own: Stable. Comfortable. Nurturing, with room inside for Kewanna to cook and outside for her to garden (she loves doing both). She imagined her children one day coming to the family homestead with their children, “for my babies growing up to have a home to come to forever,” Kewanna told Seehafer News when her home was dedicated earlier this summer. “It’s just the thought of the future and how happy they will be.”

Finally, there’s the amount of creativity, imagination, and innovation on the part of all Habitat Lakeside stakeholders, from staff and volunteers to donors and in-kind partners, required to build our homes. Our financial and in-kind donors have the tremendous gift of vision: They can imagine a world where everyone has a safe and decent place to world. And they understand that it will take time and money to get there. They have the foresight to invest in Sheboygan County’s future. Our staff and volunteer share that same vision for the future of our community.

Very soon, Habitat Lakeside will launch a fundraising campaign to gather the money we will need to build 21 affordable, decent houses on Sheboygan’s near north side. We are early in the process of acquiring the land and preparing it for building. It will take every bit of imagination, creativity, and financial support from Sheboygan County’s businesses, foundations, citizens, and grant-makers to make this dream come true.

Yes, building 21 homes is a little more complicated than making collages out of pipe cleaners and googly eyes. The spark and the fuel are the same, though. Vision. Imagination. Creativity. And the desire to create something beautiful.

Please help us get started on this journey by making a donation. If you or your organization would like to play a more prominent role in this partnership, please call Le’Shay Guy at 920-458-3399 ext. 308 or email [email protected]. Thank you!