A look back and a glimpse ahead.

By Le’Shay Guy, Habitat Lakeside executive director

For nonprofits, the end of a fiscal year is a lot like New Year’s Eve. It’s fun and instructive to reflect on the year that’s ending and enjoyable to imagine what’s in store for the new year.

As Habitat Lakeside closes fiscal 2024 and welcomes fiscal 2025, here are my reflections on what’s happened and what is about to happen.

This spring, we finished our 52nd house, which became a home in June when Teanna Zillmer and her family moved in. The house is a financial foundation for Zillmer; it is also a physical memorial to the son of a compassionate and generous Sheboygan family. The dedication took place on a Wednesday in the home’s living room due to drenching rain. About three dozen people of all generations mingled in that house, suffusing it with love and kindness. The event embodied our mission: Bringing people together to build homes, community, and hope.

We developed and published our new strategic plan, which calls for five houses to be built each year beginning in 2027. This goal, when accomplished, will increase our capacity to provide affordable housing in Sheboygan County by 150 percent. Note that I say “when” and not “if.”  That’s because I trust that individuals, corporations, and organizations in Sheboygan will support us in our mission, as they have in years past. Thank you for your support — past, present, and future.

Our office team is complete. Formerly development director, I stepped into the executive director role this past January. Penny Rayfield, family services manager, joined us in August of 2024. Lisa Bertagnoli filled the role of marketing and communications manager in March of 2025, and Rachel Hartlaub, former interim ReStore manager, accepted the full-time position in April. Jon Hoffman, a long-time Habitat Lakeside employee (and former executive director!) is our construction manager.

A fully staffed Habitat Lakeside comes in handy as we welcome our 2025 fiscal year on July 1. We have acquired the land needed to build three homes this year, an encouraging start to our goal of five a year. With the help of several prominent and compassionate Sheboygan County families, we are widening the search for private funding.

We have exciting new programs planned, including Repurposed for a Reason, an art exhibition and collaboration with The Sheboygan Collective, a Sheboygan-based art school and creative collaborative space. The exhibition, scheduled for Aug. 6, 2025, will launch an arts-and-crafts kiosk in the ReStore. ReStore, for its part, is growing by leaps and bounds, thanks to its dedicated staff and volunteers, plus high-quality donations from area residents and businesses. Keep them coming, please and thank you.

Rock the Block, our three-day-long neighborhood spruce-up event, will take place in Plymouth this year for the first time ever, and we can hardly wait. We’ll need volunteers, so sign up early and sign up often and watch this space and our social media for details.
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Aging in place, a home-repair service for older adults, will begin this fiscal year, too. Details will be revealed on our website and social media pages. We’re excited to help Sheboygan adults stay in their homes for as long as they can, because as we all know, there’s no place like home.