Building a legacy with Habitat for Humanity

Creating a legacy for the community

Tom and Charmaine have made service to others a central part of their lives. Tom met Charmaine while serving as a pastor in Rochester, Minnesota, and they have been married for 42 years. Charmaine was teaching Sunday school, and through their church they discovered Habitat for Humanity.

The church’s youth group volunteered to go on a mission trip to Alamosa, Colorado, with Habitat, and Tom enjoyed working with the Habitat staff and meeting the homeowner family. Despite having no hot water in the showers during the week of the build, Tom caught the Habitat bug and never looked back.

Over time, Charmaine and Tom deepened their connection to Habitat. Tom continues to volunteer, participating in dozens of builds and serving as the spiritual adviser on the board of his local affiliate for eight years.

Helping essential workers build affordable places to call home

As an eighth-grade social studies teacher at Aspen Middle School, Lyssa loves her job. “I’m a teacher through and through,” she says. Lyssa has lived and worked in the Colorado mountain community for more than a decade and never wanted to change her career. Faced with exorbitant housing and rental prices in the Roaring Fork Valley, however, she felt that staying there seemed impossible.

Lyssa had to consider what was manageable for her and her husband, Jeremy, and their two children, 6-year-old Arlo and 4-year-old Willa. And it wasn’t just their family facing the prospect of leaving. Lyssa saw firsthand that a dire lack of affordable housing in the valley was the driving force behind the school district’s challenge to recruit and retain teachers. “It’s impossible to find any housing on a teacher salary,” Lyssa says. “Our valley loses a lot of teachers because of housing.”

Leaving a lasting legacy with Habitat’s Endowment Fund

Habitat’s Endowment Fund provides permanent funding resources that enable us to meet challenges and leverage opportunities to expand access to decent, affordable housing. Numerous initiatives, including new home construction; repairing existing residences; and aiding veterans, low-income families and those impacted by disaster, like Hurricane Ian, are supported by the endowment. Additionally, the endowment supports the development of financial education programs for partner families as they move into stronger and more stable lives in their new homes.

Gifts to the endowment can be made with cash, stocks or other appreciated assets. These can be one-time contributions or part of an ongoing plan to create and expand an endowed account. Many donors choose to fund their endowment via a gift after their lifetime through a bequest in a will or trust. In any case, investing in Habitat’s Endowment Fund creates an enduring legacy of support for donors and demonstrates a commitment to the vision of a world where everyone has a decent place to live.

Please visit our website to learn more about Habitat’s Endowment Fund and other planned giving options. Together, we can build homes, communities and hope for those who need it most.

A Return to Home: Rebuilding in Puerto Rico

Antero and his wife, Luz, moved into their home in the Adjuntas municipality of Puerto Rico nearly 30 years ago. Together, they shared countless memories under its roof and raised their three children inside its walls. But when Hurricane Maria barreled across the island in 2017, the couple’s treasured family home was almost destroyed.  

“The building was standing. Thank God,” says 62-year-old Antero, in his native Spanish, as he recalls inspecting his home after the hurricane. “Later, I continued checking and searching, and I noticed the severe damage to the interior. And the roof was so weakened it could no longer withstand even a breeze.”