I have worked with North Webster Habitat (Now Fuller Center of Webster Parish) since I moved to Minden in 2002. I have pounded nails, blessed newly completed homes and attend many functions that supported their ministry.
I am the Rector of St. John's Episcopal Church in Minden, LA and our parish has actively supported their ministry financially many years. Members have volunteered in the building and rehabilitating of properties.
We have hosted dinners for workers, especially those college students who come to Webster Parish for their spring break to volunteer to help provide affordable housing.
This is an outstanding organization working tirelessly to assist people who can not afford to live in decent housing any other way.
The Rev. Dr. Wayne E. Carter
St. John's Episcopal Church
Minden, LA
This is a great organization which is providing decent housing in a parish where there is little availability of decent affordable housing for ownership or renting. Webster Parish is a rural community in which the vast majority of citizens are low-income families. This organization is the only agency building homes that are affordable to these citizens. It has affected the lives of many families over the years and just recently completed the 3rd annual Millard Fuller Legacy Build in which 8 new homes were constructed and 7 existing homes were rehabilitated. This organization works with families and volunteers to provide decent, affordable housing for families that have been mentored in home ownership and home maintenance, thus taking the first steps in lifting them out of poverty.
They just completed a week long build of 8 new homes and 7 rehab homes. it is a wonderful ministry of what God's people can do together. Even in a so-called down economy, there is still a pouring out of what God can achieve through his people. Wonderful organization and wonderful people of Webster parish.
I've been the executive director of this local housing ministry for 12 and a half years. Beginning life in 1991 as North Webster Habitat for Humanity, we were able to assist only four families in eight years to move into simple, decent housing. Realizing the need to serve people throughout our parish (county), we became Webster Habitat for Humanity in 2001, and in 2007 we followed Millard Fuller (founder of Habitat for Humaity) as he built a new housing ministry - The Fuller Center for Housing.
Through our 20-year history, we have now been able to help almost 70 families to move from substandard living conditions to simple, decent housing. We have built a total of 46 new houses and rehabilitated 20 existing houses. Almost 200 lives have been improved by the efforts of our non-profit housing ministry.
We have been blessed to be able to see homeowner families who thrived in their new living conditions. We have been pleased to see children of homeowners who have completed high school, gone on to college and received degrees, and have established a firm place for themselves in society.
We have been blessed to see some of our homeowners themselves reach for higher goals and achieve them - at least in part because of their improved living conditions.
And we have been blessed to have involved literally thousands of volunteers - from teenagers to senior citizens, college groups, church groups, prison partners, and teams of people who did not even know each other - who have discovered or reinforced in themselves the profound satisfaction that comes from helping someone else to improve their life.