Thrivent Lutheran Alliance May Mean 500 Houses a Year
by Bill Walsh
Julie Jarrell, a single young woman from Morenci, Mich., has adopted five inner-city children from Detroit--all beautiful, active, affectionate children, and all with special needs. She has committed her life to providing a decent, safe and loving home for them--difficult enough for a two-parent family, a daunting job for a single mother. But Jarrell says that it is the work that God intends for her.
This vibrant young family had definitely outgrown their small three-bedroom, one-bath home in Morenci. But overcrowding was not the most serious issue--the encroaching mold in the rental house posed a health risk to her oldest son Antonio, who suffers from allergies.
"There is black mold on the ceilings," Jarrell explains as she points out the discolorations above her. "There is a lot of water damage inside where the electricity doesn't work. The lights don't work in several of the rooms."
That was then. This is now. Jarrell's new Habitat for Humanity home was built through a new alliance between Habitat for Humanity International and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans. The partnership is called Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity. "I think Thrivent Builds is a wonderful, wonderful thing," Jarrell says. "We're so very thankful."
The Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity alliance isn't just about money, insists Mark Andrews, executive director of the Thrivent Builds program.
"When I saw that figure," Andrews says of the initial transfer of $21.68 million from Thrivent Financial for Lutherans to Habitat, "I remembered when I first started with Habitat (in 1992). The annual budget of the entire organization was less than that."
The dollars are part of a four-year, $105 million alliance with Thrivent Financial, which includes $5 million for Gulf Coast recovery. The alliance makes Thrivent Financial Habitat's largest single private ally in its goal of eliminating substandard housing and rebuilding communities. The Fortune 500 membership organization headquartered in Minneapolis and Appleton, Wis., has pledged to help Habitat increase building capacity with the help of its nearly 3 million members. All homes built through Thrivent Builds are above and beyond what Habitat affiliates would have built without the program.
"Two hundred thousand houses is a phenomenal number for our organization to have built in 30 years," says Chris Clarke, Habitat's senior vice president for communications, "but it is far shy of eliminating poverty housing, and even at the rate we were going, we know that we would never build to the scale we'd like in order to eliminate poverty housing."
"This," Andrews says of the Thrivent alliance, "is very obviously an opportunity to increase the scale, big time. In the first year, Thrivent will fund 312 houses across the U.S. This is a 6 percent increase in Habitat's building in the United States. We hope to reach a level in subsequent years that will see an additional 500 houses being built each year."
Impressive numbers, to be sure, but the program isn't just about these numbers, Andrews reiterates. It's about engaging Thrivent Financial members.
"If Thrivent spends all this money and does not engage its members in their communities, it is a failure," he says. "Thrivent Financial is a Fortune 500 organization that is very successful, but it is not always recognized for all the good it does in communities where it has a presence. Thrivent hopes that connecting with Habitat will give Lutheran members a new opportunity to connect with their communities."
It's a natural fit. In the first year, almost 400 "chapters"--geographically-based volunteer groups of Thrivent Financial members--are being paired with more than 200 Habitat affiliates to build homes in more than 40 states and the District of Columbia. Locations were chosen through an application process based on local Lutheran density and the local affiliate's ability to build more homes. Thrivent Financial will fund 70 percent of the new-home construction. Local Thrivent chapters are tasked to raise 10 percent, while Habitat affiliates kick in the remaining 20 percent.
"Greater results generally breed greater awareness," Clarke says, "and greater awareness brings more people to the ministry. It is a fascinating, self-fulfilling loop where success breeds success."
Visit www.thriventbuilds.com for more information.
Cheryl Winget, of the Alliance Strategy Office of Thrivent Builds, contributed to this article.
