Deidra Johnson and her children Antonio, Monasiah, Messiah, and Terrion left their rental house with a leaky roof and drafty windows to move into a home of their own. They are the proud owners of House #19.

House #19 - Beginning of the first day...

House #19 - End of the first day...

House #19 photos by Stewart Rake

MEMC employees working together on a Saturday morning

Members of Grand Avenue Church of Christ have given up a month of Saturdays to work on House #17. Adults have worked on OSB, siding, and insulation to date. The youth of the church are wielding rollers and brushes to paint trim off-site.

Dillingham Boys Paint-a-thon

What do you get when you add 23 5th- and 6th-grade boys, 9 buckets of paint, 2 dozen brushes, some shelving, and lots of pizza? A Dillingham slumber party benefitting Habitat for Humanity.

Dillingham teacher Sharla Mullens offered to host an all-boys slumber party overnight at Dillingham school with a twist: for a $25 donation, the boys could spend the night at the school, watch movies, eat pizza, and paint shelving for a house to be constructed this spring and summer in Sherman. Their donations, less the cost of pizza, will be presented to Habitat for Humanity at the time of the dedication for House #17 in late June. The boys set up the boards on the school lawn and painted everything in sight, including all the shelving for the bedrooms, linen closet and pantry for the house.

This is the second major donation to Habitat for Humanity from Dillingham students. Their gift of $1,000 was presented at the dedication of House #16 in March, 2008.

Another example of AC students doing good stuff!

Yaqub Baiani, Yusuf Baiani and Fabian Latorre recently installed and set up computers for two Grayson County Habitat families.

AT&T's "One Economy" program donated the Dell computers and gave two years of high speed internet service to Habitat families, and Ariel Ketcherside, president of AC chapter of Habitat, recruited Yaqub, Yusuf and Fabian to do the installation.

Members of Red River Unitarian Universalist Church know their plants! The church has provided funding, labor, and lots of creative design for landscaping projects for the last several years. In fact, they have landscaped three Habitat homes in the last three years.

Students from Texoma Christian School rolled out a green carpet of sod at House #16 at 218 E. Hull in Denison. The high school students contributed a Saturday morning of labor to lay three pallets of grass.

The Austin College HfH chapter of Habitat for Humanity recently awarded plaques to students who had volunteered at least 7 hours this fall on house construction. More than 17 students earned plaques, and their work on Habitat construction projects collectively totaled 120 hours. These students can swing a hammer!