Immaculate Conception youth group volunteers help with Habitat for Humanity home build

In a newly-built house on a weedy lot, down a side street in Cape Girardeau, paint rolls onto interior doors and walls, getting everything ready for a family to move in as soon as work is complete.

Meg Garner, director of Immaculate Conception Catholic Church in Jackson's youth group, said she first started working with Habitat for Humanity when she was in high school. She helped build houses then, and said she wanted to bring that same opportunity to serve to the youth group's members.

"We are called to serve," Garner said. "As Christian people, it's what we do, and finding opportunities to come out into the community, however minute it might seem, it will all help make a difference."

Garner said this was instilled in her from an early age, to just help.

"You do what you can," she said.

Besides Garner, the two workers rolling paint onto a hallway door were Nathan Chanley and Kolbe Asmus, both 14, and both building up service hours for their confirmation in November.

"I'm just enjoying doing this, pretty much," Chanley said as he rolled white paint on the hall closet door. "I've been learning on the job."

Chanley said he's helped at home with projects like this, but he's learned more about applying paint.

"Painting is fun," Asmus said, and "I knew how already, I haven't really learned anything new. But paint cans are great doorstops."

Most of the house was already painted in colors picked out by the homeowners, Garner said, and the project worked well since she and the youth group workers just had to show up -- materials and instructions were already in place.

That's typically how Habitat for Humanity works, said operations manager Preety Pradhan.

"We try to make it simple for our volunteers," Pradhan said. "Instead of figuring out what they're going to do, we try to give them a heads up of what they'll be working on and make sure everything they need is on site."

Cape Area Habitat for Humanity has a store at 2365 Rust Ave. in Cape Girardeau, called the ReStore, which sells home construction and decoration items, and also has volunteer staff.

Members of Immaculate Conception's youth group also volunteer there on certain days of the week, youth group director Garner said.

But the houses built by Habitat for Humanity volunteers are at the heart of what the organization is about, said Pradhan.

The process of building a house for a family is strict, Pradhan said, and must follow the national organization's guidelines.

"We make sure families are selected based on fair values and are willing to partner with Habitat," Pradhan said.

One of the main criteria is a mortgage, Pradhan said. The Habitat house is not given to the family -- the family must assume some risk, but the house is built by volunteer labor and as many donated materials as possible, which brings the cost down.

"The family signs a partnership agreement with Habitat," Pradhan said, "and the homeowner must contribute 60 percent of the 150 hours of labor needed to build the house."

The remaining 40 percent of labor can be contributed by friends and family, Pradhan said, and that's where groups like Immaculate Conception's youth group come in.

"It's the support of local people," she said. "Without them volunteering, our program is almost impossible to execute because it is a mortgage based on their income. Volunteers make it affordable for these homeowners. It helps us cut down a lot of labor costs, which ends up being a big cost for any project."

Adds Pradhan, "Volunteers putting in even two hours a week, that's a big help."

mniederkorn@semissourian.com

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