Let Us Count the Ways Habitat Chicago Volunteers Are Awesome

You know who’s amazing? You. Well, you and the rest of the Habitat Chicago volunteers (you know, the people who work so hard to see that every person in Chicago has the opportunity to thrive…). Take a look at just a few of the volunteers who left us feeling “wow’d” in 2016.   

Team Shelby Saville at Women Build: 

1. Who they are: a group of 12 incredible women, not much different from you and your friends.

2. What made them wow us: not only did they invigorate enthusiasm on site during Women Build by showing off these dance moves and hammering skills in the midst of a long, hot workday, but they also raised over $22,000 in support of Catherine Goins and her family. 

3. Bottom line: extraordinary hardly does this group justice. 

Engineers Without Borders (EWB): 

1. Who they are: Allies. To Habitat Chicago. To West Pullman. To all. 

2. What made them wow us: When Mother Nature stepped in and made it impossible to finish all exterior home repairs at April’s Block Build, the group came out the following weekends to complete the projects – one by one by one. (Don’t fret! Their efforts were celebrated appropriately as residents of the block hosted cookouts the end of each work day.) 

3. Bottom line: EWB will stop at nothing to provide West Pullman residents the opportunities they deserve to build a strong, stable community. We like that. 

TrueQuest Communications: 

1. Who they are: Oh, your typical award-winning, Chicago-based company. 

2. What made them wow us: To celebrate 15 successful years in 2016, TrueQuest decided to give back to their city by raising $5,000 for the Pope Francis Home Challenge AND getting out on site to volunteer. 

3. Bottom line: Publisher/CEO Patrice Tuohy was a true champion of the Pope Francis Home Challenge, relentlessly encouraging her team not only to show up and build, but also to raise the funds that made the Powers family’s home a reality. That’s what inspiration looks like. 

CAPS officers: 

1. Who they are: Officers Gomez and Poblador, just two of many Chicago Alternative Policing Strategy (CAPS) officers.

2. What made them wow us: 

   • The officers gave Block Builders a little treat: a good, old-fashioned sugar rush powered by mounds out candy at lunchtime.

   • They jumped in on the hard work of the day – breaking a sweat to help complete 5 exterior home repairs, 15 vacant lot and 3 alleyway cleanups, and the distribution of nearly 600 weatherization kits to Chicago residents.

3. Bottom line: Sometimes it’s okay to take candy from a stranger (no it’s not, don’t take that advice).

V4V: 

1. Who they are: the group that, even after a year, still warms our hearts.  

2. What made them wow us: they came out to volunteer in celebration of a friend whose life was taken far too soon – Vihang. 

3. Bottom line: We’ll let group coordinator Sanskruti Patel take it from here, 

“We all knew Vihang in our own unique ways… he was the type of person that left an impression on you after the first encounter. What people took away from their interactions with Vihang was just how much of a giver he was. He was a person that was making his corner of the world a better place. We never imagined that Vihang’s life would be cut short, but it was, and we all dealt with the grief in different ways. What began as intense mourning slowly turned into acceptance and ultimately a desire to do something to remember him, to commemorate his legacy.  A few of us came up with the idea that we would try to annually meet up to do a service project, what we ended up calling ‘Volunteering for Vihang – V4V’”.