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Hello fellow RV Care-A-Vanners,

Last month I talked about volunteerism, the "heart" of Habitat for Humanity. The RV Care-A-Vanner program is unique at Habitat for Humanity International in that our program is completely run by volunteers. I think that is the secret to our success as of late. Just look at our build list which is longer than it has ever been. Our disaster rebuild team is rebuilding in Alabama, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York and Colorado and our master safety trainers are educating affiliates across the country in the latest OSHA regulations.

However, your 13-member RV Care-A-Vanner desk staff cannot do it alone. We need all of you helping to run this program in order to expand our impact as builders. This is your program and the 25th Anniversary was a great example of how Care-A-Vanners stepped up to help with that event. We had nearly half of the Care-A-Vanners directly involved in planning the event or taking the disaster course. It was a team effort for sure. I have to tell you, I get frustrated when I see builds without team leaders and then read the evaluations after the build where Care-A-Vanners complain because there was no team leader! This is an example where you can help out your Care-A-Vanner desk team. Step up and lead a build when Brenda asks, or better yet, volunteer before Brenda asks! If there is no team leader for the build, it puts a bigger workload on Brenda trying to get you information about the build. Trust me, none of us need a bigger workload, so I hope you will consider team leading the next time you sign up for a build. Brenda would be happy to guide you through the process if it is your first time.

Thank you for all you do! Without all of you working hard on builds, we would not have a program to run. So let us work together to make this program bigger and better and collectively we can have a bigger impact on eliminating poverty housing.

God bless and safe travels

Mary Vandeveld
RV Care-A-Vanner coordinator
[email protected]
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Donations – Smile with Amazon
How many of us order from Amazon.com? Did you know that Amazon will donate 0.5 percent of eligible purchases to the charity of your choice? I hope that is Habitat for Humanity. All you have to do is log into your account through this portal: www.Smile.Amazon.com. Thanks for the tip, Greg!

Accomplishments

Remember: Send Mary Vandeveld photos of your builds or newspaper articles. You have been lax lately and I want pictures! If you would like to submit anything to the newsletter — a good story, a new way to do things, a construction tip or an update on a build — please do. This includes our partner affiliates! This is your newsletter, and we welcome the input. Besides, you have got to be getting tired of hearing from only me! Send your contributions to [email protected]. I want to hear from all of you!

Team leader corner

Hello from Maine,

Thank you to our July team leaders. They are: Dale and Paula LaFleur, Dee and Terry Tome, Michael and Gloriann Kramer, Rick and Paula Huls, Roxanne and David Draves, Chuck and Judy Sambs and Robert and Pamela Garlett.

Remember, if you've been thinking about becoming a team leader but are not sure what's involved, contact me at [email protected] and I will send you the guidelines. Lack of construction experience is not a reason to pass on being a team leader. Organization and people skills are what are important. So, don't forget to check the "team leader interest" box on your registration if you are willing to lead the build.

A word about severe weather: Being from Maine, two feet of snow does not freak me out but if you put me in Kansas with a tornado watch, I am out of my element. As team leaders it is very important that you know what weather risks are possible during your build. Have a plan. To where will you evacuate in the case of a tornado or flash flood? How will you communicate to your team when it is time to leave? How will you account for the whereabouts of your team members? Be sure to enlist the advice of the local affiliate and volunteers in making your plan. In each of the last few years, we have had at least one team need to evacuate a campground because of rising water. Once safe, please contact one of us at the desk to let us know you are safe and if you have moved or discontinued the build. Safety has always been a priority for the Care-A-Vanners and weather awareness is part of that. There are several good phone apps. One that I can recommend is the American Red Cross Tornado app. If you have any questions about this, please let me know.

Finally, team leaders are needed for the following builds. If you are available and willing, please contact me

August 3-17	Billings, Montana
August 10-24	Carney's Point, New Jersey
August 10-24	Durango, Colorado
August 10-24	Sioux City, South Dakota
August 24-September 7	Marquette, Michigan
August 24-September 7	Durango, Colorado
September 1-14	Boone, Iowa

Thank you and happy hammering!

Brenda Sawyer
Team leader coordinator
[email protected]

Spread the word
Send your RV friends a Care-A-Vanner brochure about this wonderful mission by just pasting this link into an email or just print out and give to fellow RVers in campgrounds.

Disaster Response

West Liberty, Ky.: West Liberty lost 500 housing units, many of them low-income, in a March 2, 2011 tornado. The latest news from West Liberty is that they have hired another construction supervisor for this year. That means we will not have to have house leaders on every build as we have done in the past. I have posted the 2014 builds in West Liberty and they are on our website. Sign up now so we can finish the mission we started. The tornado rebuild should be complete in the 2014 build season, and then we will offer regular Care-A-Vanner builds in support of the Morehead affiliate and their goal of building two to four houses a year. In 2013, our teams have helped get 14 tornado affected families into homes. Job well done! Now let us sign up for those 2014 builds and get this job finished!
Tuscaloosa, Ala.: Tuscaloosa is rebuilding following the massive tornado in 2011. I have listed the Tuscaloosa builds on our website through the entire year. No experience is required to work at Tuscaloosa. They have a great construction team there and it is a very nice place to work. Some have asked why we are still building in Tuscaloosa. The answer is simple; there are still people who lost their housing units in the 2011 tornado who are not in Habitat homes yet. Our job is not finished there yet, so sign up for Tuscaloosa and give some families that hand up that they need.
Superstorm Sandy: There is still a lot of work to be done in the Northeast. I expect to be listing builds in the Sandy affected areas soon, so watch the website for updates. Toms River listed a build in June and I expect they will need more help as the summer goes on. If you would like to be on my email list for Sandy recovery, please send a note to [email protected]. I will notify Care-A-Vanners on my list first about build opportunities there.
Colorado 2013 floods: We had six affiliates in the flood affected areas in Colorado. There was a huge need for low-income housing in the area with a rental vacancy rate of 1 percent before the floods. There were also some mobile home parks that were destroyed in the floods. The six affiliates are working closely with the Colorado State Support Organization and they already have a plan to work together and rebuild 100 new construction homes and do 100 Critical Home Repairs. We are starting our first project in Lyons, Colorado, by sending six disaster rebuild team members as house leaders. They just arrived and are starting work. At this time, we are not sending Care-A-Vanner teams, but I expect that will follow at some point. I recently listed a build in Loveland, Colorado, in September. This is not a flood recovery build, although families in Loveland's service area were affected. This build will give the affiliate a chance to see how much Care-A-Vanners can help in the future. I have an email list for the Colorado flood rebuild effort, so if you would like to be on the list, send me a note to [email protected].

Featured Builds

Affiliates in need:
Loveland, Colo.: We have a build listed starting on September 14. We need builders! This is a new affiliate for us so I would like to have a good showing.
Adrian, Mich.: This is another new affiliate for us. Adrian is also listed for September 14.
Cedar Rapids, Iowa: They are looking for help on August 6-10 when they are doing a five-day A Brush with Kindness blitz for five families. It is a unique project. Where else can you have an impact on five families in five days?
RV Care-A-Vanners needed everywhere! Have you checked out our build list lately? You have lots of build choices and there are many affiliates who are counting on our teams to complete projects this summer. Please sign up for what you can.

Safety corner

There are many differences between a new build and a rehab. One thing we must remember about a rehab is often we have live power turned on in the house. That sure makes it easier to run power tools doesn't it? But do we think about the danger associated with renovating a house with live electricity?

A quick review of the OSHA investigation summaries reveals some needless cases of death by electrocution. Some happened installing drywall, changing out light switches, dimmers or lighting as well as ceiling fans, just to name a few. How could we prevent these shocks? Let's see what OSHA says.

29 CFR 1926.417 describes requirements to protect those working around electrical circuits. The safe work practices include Lockout Tagout procedures and apply to anyone working on, near or with electricity.

What is Lockout Tagout? It's a procedure used to de-energize a power source by turning off the circuit breakers to the entire house or a specific area of a house. Once the circuit has been turned off, it's rendered inoperable by means of a lock. This lock prevents it from accidentally being turned back on. If more than one person is working in that area, each person must have a lock and each lock has only one key.

Let's take a look at an example. Mary's house sustained severe water damage in a flood. The first floor was gutted and a group of Care-A-Vanners are now installing sheetrock. Since power is on in the house, they take full advantage and are all using electric drills plugged into the wall. Someone accidentally puts a screw through a live wire and is electrocuted. What should they have done? The correct procedure would be to turn the circuit breaker off for each room as they go, or better yet, the entire first floor. Since there are four people working on the project, there needs to be four locks. Why? Let's say it's near the end of the day and they only used one lock, since they are all working together. Joe takes the lock off and turns the power back on for Mary. The group moves outside and is busy chatting with the group painting outside. No one notices that Jean isn't with them. Meanwhile Jean returns from a bathroom break. She is unaware that Joe turned the power back on. She wants to finish that one little section she was working on before departing for the day. She accidentally hits a wire with a screw and is electrocuted. If there were four locks, the power could not have been turned back on without everyone including Jean removing their own locks.

Pictured below are some examples of lockout tagout kits. The hasp pictured here is less than $8 at Home Depot and can accommodate six different locks. Each lock must be tagged to identify the person locking out.

Frank Peccia
Care-A-Vanner safety coordinator
[email protected]

Windows to Washington

Join us in being a SHOP-aholic – no credit card required

When I was young, my mother had to bribe me to go shopping with her. Left to my own devices, I'd happily wear the same pair of shoes until they fell off my feet if it meant not having to step a (bare) foot in a mall or department store. For the price of a small Orange Julius (say, are those still around now?), I'd begrudgingly sit beneath racks of clothes reading Nancy Drew until my mom came to fetch me, shopping bags of school clothes, kitchen supplies and other finds in hand. Years later, I'm still a "when I must" shopper and have even been known to treat myself to grocery delivery rather than bike to the store.

So how on earth can a person like me claim to be a SHOP-alohic? I'll tell you!

"SHOP" stands for the Self-Help Homeownership Opportunity Program, but there should be an extra "S" for "smart" because this is one smart idea. Since 1996, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has worked with self-help (meaning "sweat equity") housing organizations like Habitat for Humanity to promote successful low-income homeownership through SHOP. The program works by awarding grants through a competitive process; to get money, you've got to show that you know how to use it.

SHOP only funds land acquisition and/or infrastructure improvements – not construction costs. This focus puts land – including many vacant properties – to good use. Plus, the SHOP funds must be used as leverage to secure additional funding for building on the acquired sites – and leverage they have! More than $1 billion of private investment has reached local communities through SHOP since 1996, which means a smart use of our tax dollars.

Lastly, under SHOP, there's no dilly-dallying – affiliates have 24 months to spend all of the funds, build the homes and sell them. SHOP funds have supported homes in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In Vero Beach, Florida, for example, the Indian River Habitat for Humanity has grown from 23 homes in 2000 to more than 300 with support from SHOP funds. With SHOP, Habitat affiliates as a whole have housed more than 56,000 people and helped address the escalating affordable housing shortage nationwide while boosting local economies.

So what's the problem? In short, Congress may not keep SHOP open for business. While the Senate appropriations bill protects SHOP as a stand-alone program (and "level funds" the program – meaning no change from last year's budget – at $10 million), the House bill would fold SHOP into another federal program called HOME without guaranteeing that a single dollar will be allocated for SHOP uses within the HOME program. This means cutting the funding pie into even smaller pieces without knowing if even a slice will reach the self-help projects. As a result, this proposal would greatly limit Habitat affiliates' ability to purchase foreclosed properties and rehabilitate unproductive spaces. It would also impose new, restrictive underwriting standards that could disqualify current grantees, including Habitat affiliates, who have been using SHOP funds to build their communities. Further, shifts in the program could skew funding to urban and suburban areas, rather than reaching the entire country, including rural areas.

In essence, the House would close up SHOP.

While monitoring the appropriations process may seem more like watching paint dry than going to a wall-raising ceremony, federal appropriations are what make the wall-raising ceremonies possible. We need federal programs to support our work across the United States and make the dream of homeownership come true for our partner families.

If you care about affordable housing, then you're a SHOP-aholic, too. Add your voice to the call to protect SHOP and click here to send a message to your lawmakers today.

Collegiate Challenge and Care-A-Vanners

CC BUILDS: We continue to register affiliates who want some extra help supervising the students coming to them on their school break to build. Just look for the CC after the city in the build listing. These builds are just one week long, but require enough construction experience to supervise the tasks given to the students. Don't forget that any regular two-week Care-A-Vanner build scheduled in February or March may also include students as well.

Team leader survey results:
I did a recent survey of the Care-A-Vanners that were on Collegiate Challenge builds last February and March to see if having a team leader would have improved their experience. The responses indicated that the system in place seemed to have worked fine, which is where I make the contact with the affiliate to find out the logistics and then send an email to each person going to that particular affiliate with the information. Several of you felt I needed to be kept in the loop and aware of any problems. On the other hand, I am not at the build site, so some responders thought it might be good to assign one person on the team to be the on-site facilitator to sort out any concerns once the team arrived. Some Care-A-Vanners on Collegiate Challenge builds last spring did this on their own and it worked well. The assigned person would also be responsible for keeping track of hours to report back to the Care-A-Vanner desk. Obviously, if there is just one rig, it would fall to that rig's person to take on the on-site role. Collegiate Challenge Builds are only from one to three rigs. So we will give this a try – a kind of shared team leadership if you will.

If you sign up for a CC build, you will first hear from me directly after you sign up, acknowledging your registration. Then a month before the build starts, I will send the detailed information you will need before your arrival, along with a copy of the roster. You may also be asked to be the on-site facilitator to handle any concerns and report on the number of hours worked.

Diane Gravlee
Collegiate Challenge coordinator
[email protected]

Welcome new Care-A-Vanners

Howard and Nic Bornstein, Simon and Susan Bowland, Dan and Marion Byron, Dennis and Nancy Dupre, John and Juli Gill, Calvin and Sue Henley, Don and Diane Hendricks, Tyler Holdman, Jeff Horwitz, Elvin and Sally Lowe, Dan Merryman and Robert Edgar-Merryman, Charlie Miller, Gayle Miller, Craig Morgan, Roxanne Ramos, Glenn and Janeen Robinson, David and Rosemary Smith, Randy and Judy Springer, Rich Suter and Val and Benita Urban.

Our apologies if we have included a seasoned Care-A-Vanner, or if this is duplication. Habitat for Humanity is grateful for the work that you do!

Questions, cancellations or concerns?
1-800-HABITAT, ext. 7534
1-229-410-7534 (direct)
[email protected]
RV Care-A-Vanner staff contact info

Register for a build online
Step-by-step instructions

Roster updates
Please email updated roster information to [email protected] or [email protected] or call 1-229-410-7534. begin_of_the_skype_highlighting

Report Care-A-Vanner hours
Help us keep track of total volunteer hours contributed, and partner families served. Please email these stats from your drop-in or ongoing builds to [email protected].

Donate to RV Care-A-Vanners
How to donate money or vehicles