What’s it like to help two families realize their dreams of home ownership?
Bradon Burnham’s Grade 12 leadership students know that great feeling after assisting at the latest Habitat for Humanity Sarnia/Lambton build on Thursday.
The Great Lakes Secondary School class pitched in to paint the trim and install vinyl flooring in a duplex on Emma Street where two multigenerational families will soon move in.
“My students are always excited for the opportunity to jump into a community activity that helps people,” said Burnham. “They are a very special group of students.”
While teaching at the former SCITS high school, Burnham said he regularly engaged his students with Habitat projects and saw a chance to reach out to Habitat again with his Great Lakes leadership students.
“It was awesome to bring this back,” he said. The class plans to return to Emma Street in May to do some landscaping.
It’s been about nine months since construction began at 268 and 270 Emma Street with the two families present that will live there.
One is a family of seven from Syria including a grandmother, mother, father and four children. The second family is a mom with four children and one grandchild. They were selected on the basis of need and their ability re repay a no-down, no-interest mortgage. Each family also committed to volunteer 500 hours toward the construction of their homes.
Expenses for this project, which represents Habitat’s 77th and 78th house in Sarnia-Lambton, are offset by a land donation from the City of Sarnia and a $100,000 grant from the federal government’s National Housing Co-Investment Fund.