Mo. women help build home for single mother

JOPLIN, Mo. -- Julie Martinez-Smith and Kelly Leondelapaz were each looking for a sign.

The two women didn't know each other, but both found their prayer answered in the other person.

Martinez-Smith was moved to tears by an episode of the television show Extreme Home Makeover and wanted to help someone.

"I was bawling and told my husband I wished we could afford to do this for someone, that I wished God would give us the opportunity to do this," Martinez-Smith said.

Leondelapaz was dreaming of owning a home, but said there was no way for the single mother of two to do it alone.

"I knew for a fact that we would never have been able to afford [to buy a house] -- unless they got a job," Leondelapaz said, joking as she motioned to her two sons, Trayquan, 6, and Keyshawn Peavler, 2.

The two women met when Martinez-Smith headed up the Joplin-Area Habitat for Humanity project that built Leondelapaz's new home.

Martinez-Smith said she didn't know much about Habitat for Humanity, but a local representative of the organization called and asked if she would take the lead.

"I asked for it -- I couldn't say 'no,"' she said.

Martinez-Smith started the project later that week.

For the next two and a half months, she worked as a banker by day and a builder by night along with a crew of more than 100 female volunteers. It was the first Joplin-Area Habitat for Humanity project built completely by women.

Scott Clayton, executive director of the Joplin-Area Habitat for Humanity, said the "Women Build" project is an international Habitat for Humanity phenomenon, but it had not spread to Joplin, until now.

The idea, Martinez-Smith said, is to empower women to do things around the house and even tackle some construction projects. And to celebrate the feminine touch, much of the Joplin project was done with pink hammers from Tomboy Tools, a company that specializes in tools for women.

Wells Fargo's mortgage company donated $30,000 to build the house. Small hands and pink tools laid the concrete-block foundation, framed the walls and poured the concrete of the 1,200-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bathroom house. The women hung doors and windows, laid flooring and put in landscaping.

Most of the women, including Martinez-Smith, had never done any of it before.

"Most of the women showed up and didn't have a clue what they were doing, and lots of days I showed up and didn't have a clue," she said.

Leondelapaz was also there, every Saturday, helping build her new home. Martinez-Smith said it was all part of Habitat's philosophy of giving a hand up instead of just a handout.

Martinez-Smith's husband, Tony Smith, owner of TR Smith Construction in Joplin, knew what the project would require.

"My husband kept asking if I was sure I wanted to do this," Martinez-Smith said. "I said, 'How hard could it be.' I had to eat those words later."

It took some patient male builders, Martinez-Smith said, including her husband, to teach and oversee the women's work. Lowe's in Joplin also helped by holding "how-to" workshops that correlated with whatever the women were preparing to do next on the house.

And while the women built the house together week after week, Martinez-Smith said they built something else, too.

"The building of relationships was really fun," Martinez-Smith said. "I met a lot of different women. I was building those relationships with people that I probably wouldn't have if we weren't building a house together."

Scott Clayton, executive director of the Joplin-Area Habitat for Humanity, said that is part of the goal of the organization's women-only projects.

"It's just a certain way of bringing people together," Clayton said. "It's learning and helping all at the same time."

Habitat for Humanity finished the house May 28. Leondelapaz moved in the first week of June, and put on an open house for her friends to see her new home. She said some of her favorite features of the new house are the updated kitchen, wood floors and that her sons can each have their own bedroom.