Grab Your Hammer or Your Sewing Needle: Habitat Partner Shares Dreams and Sets Goals

For more than 30 years, Habitat for Humanity of Orange County has been putting faith and love into action by bringing people together to build homes, community, and hope. We know how much a family’s life can change with safe, decent, affordable housing – we also know that home prices in Orange County make that dream impossible for so many hardworking families.

The Habitat model – where families build and buy their home – has proven successful. Thanks to the help of donors and volunteers, we have built 227 homes and helped hundreds of families build strength, stability, and self-reliance.

The Los Ranchos Presbytery has been a long-time partner with Habitat for Humanity. Habitat OC and the Presbytery have worked together for more than 20 years to give families a chance to transform their lives. The Presbytery also played a key role in the development of the Presbyterian Coalition – a group of churches and faith-based organizations committed to building homes and helping families in our community.

Recently, the Presbyterian Coalition set an ambitious goal: to raise $105,000 over three years to help Habitat OC build 12 new homes in Fullerton. Despite the impact of COVID-19, the Coalition rose to the challenge – and ended up beating their fundraising goal by more than $10,000!

After surpassing their goal, the Coalition is getting ready to work with Habitat OC on a new fundraising challenge: the Faith Partner Initiative.

Faith Partner Initiative

In a time of great division and unrest throughout America,
we demonstrate our faith, love, and power of God by putting differences aside.
We unite to answer the prayers of families who dream the American dream
of homeownership by creating an opportunity for people of faith to
Build Homes, Repair Homes, and Transform Lives.

Goals

• 200 faith partners answer this call to transform the lives of 30 families
• $350,000 raised to support the construction and completion of 12 new Habitat OC Homes in Fullerton (4), Stanton (6), and Santa Ana (2)
• Provide 18 critical Homes Repairs for Veterans and low-income families in need.

The Presbyterian Coalition has joined this new fundraising initiative – and has set a goal to raise $35,000 over the next year to support the mission of Habitat OC. To meet this goal, Habitat OC and the Coalition will work together to reach out to all Presbyterian churches in OC and invite them to join the coalition and our Faith Partner Initiative to further our mission of building homes, community, and hope.

Attention ALL Quilters!

Quilters at Presbyterian Church of the Master and Yorba Linda Presbyterian Church are creating beautiful new quilts to be presented to our Fullerton and Stanton Habitat families.

The Presbyterian Coalition is creating a Unity Quilt as a sign of community coming together to love our neighbors as ourselves. All Presbyterian churches in Orange County are invited to contribute one square representing their church. A quilter from the coalition has offered to sew the squares together.  If interested, please create a 9 inch finished block (9.5 inches raw edge to raw edge; be creative; ‘pieced or applique’ your choice) and mail your square (identify your church)  to Habitat for Humanity OC, Attention: Loretta Dunivan, 2200 Ritchey St, Santa Ana, CA 92705. Questions? loretta@habitatoc.org

Homebuyer Program

Is there someone in your congregation who could use the gift of homeownership? We have homes for sale for families in both the low- and moderate-income range. To see our qualifications and to sign up for a homebuyer orientation – visit https://www.habitatoc.org/homeownership/.

Got land?

“For the land is Mine, you are strangers and sojourners with Me”– Leviticus 25:23

To continue our mission in this region of southern California, we must secure land or an existing property to develop into a Habitat home.  We call on all developers, commercial real estate investors, and private landowners to prayerfully consider a partnership with Habitat for Humanity OC. A Habitat for Humanity home can never be flipped or resold on the market, but can be sold back to Habitat with the homeowner receiving the equity gained on their original investment.

New Construction Update

We are in the final phase of the last four homes in our Fullerton development. The roofs are on, the drywall is complete, and now we move to the finish work. These homes will be completed this summer. In the city of Stanton, we are moving dirt as foundation development is underway on six new townhomes. We are also working with the City of Santa Ana on a two-home development in the historic French Park neighborhood. We are finalizing the details of the agreement with the city and hope to start construction soon. Prayers are appreciated!

ReStore

Thank you to all who donate quality furniture and building material to our ReStores! Your donation supports our mission. We are prayerfully searching for a donor to provide a generous gift in kind. We need approximately 5,000 square feet of commercial warehouse/industrial storage space with roll-up doors to store items on a month-to-month basis for our two stores. The leasing agent may continue to show the property to prospects while we store items there. We will vacate the property in excellent condition once the space is rented, leased, sold.

Volunteers

We are accepting a small numbers of individual volunteers at our build site in Fullerton – and will be opening the site in Stanton to volunteers soon. As it is safe to do so with COVID guidelines, we will increase the number of volunteers on the build site. We do have other volunteer opportunities in our ReStores, Faith Relations, Family Services, Global Village, Hospitality, Office Assistance, Photography, and Women Build.  For a full list of opportunities – or to sign up as a volunteer – please visit https://www.habitatoc.org/volunteer/.

Join the Presbyterian Coalition and Habitat for Humanity OC!

There are no requirements or signed pledges to participate with the Presbyterian Coalition or to support  our new Faith Partners Initiative. Every donation is a gift and a blessing! To learn more how your church can participate in this ministry:

Loretta Dunivan
Director of Faith & Community Relations
Habitat for Humanity of OC
2200 Ritchey St.
Santa Ana, CA 92705
loretta@habitatoc.org
Mobile 505-554-0662