Featured news
Hello Care-A-Vanners,
We are on our way home from the Winnebago Grand National Rally where 184 potential new Care-A-Vanners stopped by our booth to find out more about our program. We also did a seminar and built a shed as a demonstration and despite heat indexes above 100 it was a great success and a lot of fun. Many thanks to Winnebago Industries for donating our booth and RV sites and for all their support for the build. Thanks to our own HFHI Disaster Risk Reduction and Response department who sent Kristin Wright in one of Habitat's Mobile Response Units to help with the event. Finally, thanks to the local affiliate, Habitat for Humanity of North Central Iowa who organized the build. We plan to return to the Winnebago rally next year and maybe we can build a house at the rally!
Speaking of new recruits, we need all of you recruiting for us. I just got our final FY16 stats and we set records this year. We completed 234 builds in FY16, up 17 percent from last year! We are serving a record number of affiliates: 135 which is 8 percent up from last year. However, we had to cancel 53 builds this year because no one signed up for them. That is up nearly 13 percent. So get out and walk the campground, wear your Habitat shirts and tell anyone who will listen about the program.
Our Master Safety Trainers have been busy also this year. They are now doing two-thirds of all the Competent Person Safety Trainings across the country. Our trainers have greatly increased the capacity of the safety program to train more affiliates and the results are starting to show up in our statistics from our insurance carrier, lowering liability claims by 62 percent among affiliates who have completed the competent person safety training. Great job Master Safety Trainers!
I want to thank all of you for working so hard this year and I want to thank the Care-A-Vanner desk team for taking on more work to keep the program running smoothly. It is so great to see this wonderful program growing by leaps and bounds.
Now go out and find us some more Care-A-Vanners!
God bless,
Mary Vandeveld
RV Care-A-Vanner program manager
mvandeveld@habitat.org
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Announcements
Winnebago Grand National Rally
A special thanks to Mark and Susan Okkerse, new Care-A-Vanners and old friends, who came to the rally and helped us with the booth. Also thanks to Pete Hays and Kent Roberts, two of our seasoned Care-A-Vanners who were attending the rally and helped with the build.
Alice, Texas, sign-up
There was an issue with our software program that prevented the Alice builds from going live until 11:43 a.m. on July 25. We are working with our IT support staff to fix the problem but be aware that we have an old cranky software program to manage our build sign-ups. We are hoping for a replacement sometime in the next few years.
Request from your team leaders
If you have a build coming up, please be sure to check your junk mail files for an email from your team leaders. As an unfamiliar email address, your team leaders occasionally get dumped in the junk! Another issue is when we try and call you, again from an unfamiliar number, and we find a full voicemail box. If you have not heard from your team leader within two weeks of the build, you can contact anyone of us at the Care-A-Vanner desk and will we get you in touch with your team leader.
Mason, Texas, builds
Since these builds are popular, we will have sign-up on a specific date and time in order to give everyone an equal chance at getting on the builds. The sign-up date for all Mason builds will be Monday, August 15, 2016 at 11:30 a.m. EST. All sign-ups will be online. Our web page refreshes on the half hour and sometimes it is a few minutes late. Just keep refreshing the build list until you see the builds come up. Lu and I will be standing by along with a member of our IT team to deal with any issues that come up. Please be sure to complete all of your waivers or you could be removed from the build. Be sure to remember your username and password before the sign-up time!
The builds will be listed as the following:
GV17-0021 Mason, TX Feb. 5-19, 2017
GV17-0022 Mason, TX Feb. 19 – March 5, 2017
GV17-0023 Mason, TX March 5-19, 2017
GV17-0024 Mason, TX March 19 – April 2, 2017
GV17-0025 Mason, TX April 2-16, 2017
Text messages to Care-A-Vanner desk personnel
Although we love to hear from you, we prefer email especially if you are reporting hours or have a question. That way we have a record in our computer system of your contact with us. Plus, most of us at the desk share our email boxes so we can cover for each other if one of us is unavailable on a particular day. Besides, if you text Evaluation Coordinator Dave (husband Dave to me), he will not get it since he is still hanging on to his flip phone for as long as he can! One smart phone in this family is enough.
Build names
Since we are listing more than 300 builds a year and multiple builds at the same affiliate, in all correspondence to Care-A-Vanner desk please include at least two of the following: the build number (GV16-0000 for example), the city and state and/or the start date of the build. This is a huge help to us, as we are terrible mind readers!
Having password or login issues?
Contact Lu Tillotson or Mary Vandeveld. Although we can't fix every issue, we can unlock your account and reset your password and we are quicker to respond than the webmaster!
Pet policy at Sebring, Florida, builds
Camping for the Sebring builds are at the 4-H camp which is owned by University of Florida which has a non-negotiable no pet policy. The plus to the 4-H camp is it is only $12/night. There is nothing else in the area that can offer that cheap a price for camping. If you have a pet, Blair, the volunteer coordinator at Sebring, will attempt to get you reservations at the local state park, but during January, February and March, reservations are hard to come by, so you may have to find your own accommodation or chose a different build opportunity. I remember not all that long ago when pets were not allowed in any Florida state parks, so for us pet lovers, things are improving in Florida!
Vero Beach and Fellsmere builds
Because of the expansion of the Vero Beach ReStore, we will not be scheduling any builds for the Vero Beach location this coming winter. We will however be scheduling builds in Fellsmere. Please go to our build list to sign up for the Fellsmere builds.
Reporting hours
If there is no team leader on your build, Brenda will ask someone to report hours. I see comments on surveys saying the affiliate will report your hours. Affiliates never report hours, so I need to depend on the Care-A-Vanners to let the Desk know the hours. Our statistics are an important way we monitor how our program is doing, so please report them. You can send them to the rvinfodesk@habitat.org or report them to Mary, Brenda or Lu. Don't forget to report any drop in hours you might do also.
RV Care-A-Vanner Travel with a Purpose PowerPoint presentation
If any of you are doing a presentation and would like a PowerPoint about Habitat for Humanity and the RV Care-A-Vanner program, you can download the latest version of RV CAV: Travel with a Purpose from my drop box. Be sure to let me know how your presentation went!
RV Care-A-Vanner promo video
You can download a copy from my drop box and share it will all your RV friends. It is also on our website.
Why We Build stories as always so touching to read. Share your why you build story with fellow Care-A-Vanners by sending your stories to mvandeveld@habitat.org.
Featured builds
GV16-0226 Manistique, Michigan, Sept. 18, 2016
This build in Michigan's beautiful Upper Peninsula is looking for builders. Dave and I have built there twice and really had great builds. Plus, you should catch the fall colors on Indian Lake. Go to our build list and sign up today.
Pittsboro, North Carolina, builds
They have scheduled two builds with us, one starting on Sept. 11 and the other on Oct. 9. This is a new affiliate for us, so let's give them a warm Care-A-Vanner welcome and sign up for their builds.
Fall builds
We have many builds, especially in September and October, that need builders. Please go to our build list to sign up for one of these builds.
Team leader corner
A very special thank you goes out to our July team leaders. They are: Jim Colby and Jo Ann Safranek; Fred Winslow and Sharon Adair; Ron Sheridan; Christine and Bryce Christensen; Tom and Peggy Wilcox; Dale and Paula La Fleur; Joseph and Cherilyn Wiatr; Diane and George Gravlee; Bill and Gae Bradley; Rick and Paula Huls; Bonnie and Jeff Miller; Lucius and Danielle Hermann; and Fred and Joyce DiManno.
Remember, if you've been thinking about becoming a team leader but are not sure what's involved, contact me at bsawyer@habitat.org and I will send you the guidelines. Also, if you serve as team leader at least once during the year, you will receive a very nifty team leader T-shirt!
Welcome letters
When sending your welcome letter to your team, please try to remember to send me a copy. If you are leading more than one build in the same location, no need to send me more than one. I am starting a file of information from the various affiliates so that I will have it to send to teams that have no Team Leader.
Rosters
If you are unable to read the roster I send you, or things appear to be on the wrong lines, chances are you have a Mac or iPad and Word documents do not format correctly. Just let me know and I will send them in PDF. Also, please remember to include the GV number or at least the date of your build when contacting the Care-A-Vanner desk about a build. It makes it so much easier to find the build you are referencing.
Devotions
Thank you to all who volunteered to help collect and organize devotions. Our devotions coordinator is Bill Oakes. He can be reached at just.ducky0109@gmail.com. Please send him your favorite devotions. If you need devotions to add to your file, please contact Bill and he will send them out.
Team leader topics
If there is a topic you would like me to address in a future newsletter, please let me know. I would also welcome stories about experiences you have had as team leaders that others could learn from. We could start a section for team leaders called "what should I do if..?" You send the questions and I will do my best to address them.
Finally, team leaders are needed for:
| September 4 – 18 |
Durango, Colorado |
| September 11 – 25 |
Adrian, Michigan |
| September 11 – 25 |
Pittsboro, Nevada |
| September 25 – October 9 |
Omaha, Nebraska |
| October 2 – 16 |
Kearney, Nebraska |
Thank you and happy hammering!
Brenda Sawyer
Team leader coordinator
bsawyer@habitat.org
Spread the word
Send your RV friends a Care-A-Vanner brochure about this wonderful mission by pasting this PDF into an email or just printing it out to give to fellow RVers in campgrounds.
Safety corner
Safety is in the "Getting Ready"
I am currently in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, at an event known as AirVenture. Thousands of airplanes, pilots and all other forms of aviation "buffs" are here for the next week looking at planes, equipment, services and all things aviation. No, I am not one of those – I'm working for an aviation education association that I helped form several years ago. I do this each year to help those in various areas of aviation become aware of the association and the professional services it has to offer – including educational materials, guidance, etc. As I sit here preparing this short piece, I am thinking like the educator/trainer that I have been most of my life and about what I can say that has not already been said. While there are a few of those, and the repetition of the ones that we've already talked about over time certainly has value in keeping things fresh in our minds, I am reminded of the two things in aviation that are different and more prominent than in most other areas: the checklist and the preflight.
The checklist
One thing in aviation that one never wants to do is "trust in memory." That is the way that things get missed and then bad things happen, sometimes fatally. In fact, checklists in recent years have spread to a number of other areas, such as medicine. Did you know that medical errors in hospitals are the third leading cause of death? Medicine had been slow to adopt the concept of the checklist, but that is changing, and where it has been adopted, medical errors are significantly reduced. While what we do as Care-A-Vanners may not be medicine, we do work in situations and with equipment that require certain order and sequences of operations. If we forget one of those, well, you can see the point. We talk about the procedures we should use and the equipment, but how often do we just go on the site, pick stuff up, and start – often without any real mental or equipment preparation? Do you have a mental checklist for getting started on jobs that you do on-site? Written ones are even better. I have written checklists that I always follow before moving my RV.
The preflight
The preflight is the one that prevents the "oops" factor. It is when you discover that you didn't do something before you started. Before we fly, we do a complete preflight of our aircraft, in a prescribed order, often using a checklist, either during or immediately after, to make sure it is ready to be flown. How often, however, do we pick up a power tool or other item and just start to use it – without really checking it to make sure it is ready and safe to use? The same goes here – after I "preflight" the RV before movement, the checklist is next to make sure I didn't miss anything.
Getting ready
So what am I suggesting here? "Getting ready" to work on-site is more than just showing up, tools in hand, with a huge desire to help those in need. Getting ready is also making sure that we have done the preparation that will ensure that we not only do the job right, but also do it safely and go home in the same condition in which we left it in the morning. That means checking the things we will use before we use them, checking our procedures before we do them, checking, checking and re-checking.
I would be interested to hear from any of you that have a checklist process that you use, a preparation process, or "preflight," that you use in certain situations, or when something happened because you didn't adequately prepare. We can all learn from our mistakes, and I will even "change the names to protect the innocent" as needed. Remember, according to the National Safety Council there is no such thing as an "accident." They are virtually always preventable and there is virtually always a "causal" factor. That is why they have changed their literature to refer to "incidents," not accidents.
Help prevent incidents by getting ready and by sharing situations so we can use them to illustrate to others how to get ready. I really mean it. I'd like to hear from you!
Alan Davis
Master Safety Trainer
adavis@habitat.org
Collegiate Challenge and Care-A-Vanners
Want to build in Texas in March with college students?
Would you like to spend one or two weeks in southern Texas in March? There are now two listings for an opportunity to help supervise college students next March in Beaumont, Texas. This affiliate hosted students last year and the report back from the Care-A-Vanners was very positive. You need to feel comfortable enough with construction to teach and supervise the students.
Here are the dates:
March 5-12, 2017 and as of this writing, there are two slots open out of four.
March 12-19, 2017 and as of this writing, there are three slots open out of four.
Diane Gravlee
Collegiate Challenge coordinator
dggravlee@gmail.com
Welcome new Care-A-Vanners
Brenda Adcock, Bob and Sue Becker, Tim and Cathy Bussen, Mike and Cathy Corr, Paul and Carol Dimmler, Douglas and Roxanna Faulds, Jerry Gerner, Daniel Hall, Ed and Patricia Hawkins, Bruce and Beckie Jacobson, Kurt, Debra and Sarah Johnson, Gary King, Glenn Kidder and Cecelia Brosnahan, James and Shirley Palahicky, Joe Radell, Lee and Ann Rader, and Dennis and Nancy Williams.
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!
Disaster Rebuild
Remember our mission in disaster response is to come in at the time of the rebuild efforts and to stay until the last house is replaced or repaired. A lot has to happen before rebuilding begins, including permitting, fundraising, FEMA grant application and awards, building capacity at the affiliate, family selection, etc. It is easy to remember the disaster that just happened, but where we need the help is the disaster that happened two or three years ago. HFHI Disaster Risk Reduction and Recovery, our partners, are also working with affiliates to do fortified building to reduce injuries and damage to homes and when a disaster does strike. This includes building safe rooms in tornado areas, hip roofs in hurricane zones and using anchoring systems appropriate for the risk. If you are interested in learning more about fortification standards, please review IBHS Fortified for Safer Living Standards. Your knowledge can help our affiliates learn more about these new building practices.
- West Virginia flooding: We had scheduled builds in White Sulphur Springs, W.Va., which was hit by flooding in late June after receiving 9 inches of rain in 24 hours. After the flood, we beefed up our teams with some Disaster Rebuild Team members. Our mission was to assist them with hosting their Builders Blitz builds and help them clean out their office and ReStore that were flooded. A special thanks to our Disaster Rebuild Team members, Danielle and Lucius Herrmann. They were already in the area for an Airstream rally and they gathered a team to help clean out the office and returned later in the month to help with the build project. Jay Rush came a quarter of the way across the country, Greg and Pam Lurz came halfway across the country and Ron Sheridan came all the way from Oregon to participate in this build. The team was joined by several Care-A-Vanners who were already signed up for the builds and Disaster Corps volunteers Bob and Joyce Daugherty who were the event support staff. Thank you all for your dedication! These builds wrapped up the beginning of August. I am betting we will be back there next summer to do flood recovery.
- Central Illinois: The community of Kincaid, Illinois, has 1,400 residents and 600 homes. Forty homes were critically damaged. The homeowners did not have flood insurance nor do they have the resources to get their homes repaired. The community came together and gutted the 40 homes but now need help putting them back together. Habitat for Humanity of Sangamon County in Springfield, Ilinois, is mobilizing to help. There are some things that have to come together before we can deploy the Disaster Rebuild Team and Care-A-Vanners. Most important of these is the affiliate has to raise $150,000 for the project. I will send out an email blast when we are ready to mobilize help.
- Tuscaloosa, Alabama: Tuscaloosa is still building homes for people who lost their housing unit in the 2011 tornado. To date, they have completed 55 houses, and yes, there are tornado victims who still have not gotten into homes. Our mission continues there as we stay until the last home is replaced. Tuscaloosa loves the Care-A-Vanners and has builds listed throughout the year. It is a very nice place to work.
- Georgetown, South Carolina: This area flooded in October of 2015. The long-term recovery group in partnership with the Georgetown affiliate is making plans to do repairs on 250 low-income family homes that were damaged by the flooding. A nonprofit is funding the repairs and sending 2,000 volunteers to do them in October. The catch is that many of these houses need roof repairs before mold remediation can be done and the mold remediation needs to be done before flood repairs can happen. We are looking at bringing in some of our Disaster Rebuild Team members with Care-A-Vanner teams and possible AmeriCorps teams to do these repairs. There are lots of issues we have to work through before this is going to happen, the most important is getting enough safety equipment to work on a number of houses at one time. Dan and Carolyn Banks are taking the lead on this project in their role as the Care-A-Vanner desk disaster response coordinators. They are waiting for a job assessment to be completed on each house. In the meantime, Dan and Carolyn are helping the affiliates put in RV sites put in at the disaster center in Andrews, S.C. When we are ready to take signups, you will get an email from us with details. I will also put updates in the newsletter.
Tithing connections
Promoting families served
I hope that you all have been having a fabulous summer. We are still working on finalizing the books for fiscal year 2016 that ended on June 30, but our team is excited to report that we had another great year with affiliate tithe! We know the tithe increased over last fiscal year; we are not quite sure yet the exact amount of that increase though. In the next issue, we look forward to sharing the final numbers with you.
Please know how grateful we are every day for all that you do locally and globally to support the mission of Habitat. Your support brings many blessings to our global ministry.
This month one topic that we want to touch on is families served numbers. We want to encourage you to encourage affiliates to promote their families served numbers – not only families served by the affiliate in the United States but also abroad through their tithe.
Promoting families served numbers is a great way for an affiliate to share with their staff, board, volunteers, donors and more that they are part of a global ministry. The work that affiliates do is tied to the work of Habitat in communities like Cote d'Ivoire, Zambia, Cambodia and more. That's incredible! We know that when an affiliate promotes their global work, they can have great success in increasing their local support.
Many U.S. affiliates may be surprised to know how many families the affiliate has served abroad lifetime to date – for a number of affiliates, it's many more than the families served locally lifetime to date. On average, it takes US$4,500 for Habitat to serve a family abroad with the average family consisting of five individuals.
Affiliates can access their families served abroad number from the tithe dashboard reports that are emailed out by our team quarterly to executive directors and board presidents. Also, requests for updated numbers can be sent to us at any time at tithe@habitat.org.
We look forward to sharing more information with you around the value of promoting families served numbers in coming months. For any questions in the meantime, please don't hesitate to contact us directly.
Katie Grover
Tithe specialist, Habitat for Humanity International
kgrover@habitat.org
Windows to Washington - August
Razing roadblocks: the U.S. housing finance system
At Habitat, we know that the road to homeownership can be long and full of roadblocks. Our mission is to help people overcome those roadblocks and achieve their dreams of owning a home. For the past 40 years, we've been lending a hand, one family at a time, to help them achieve that dream. But for each family whose journey ends with the turn of a key to their new home, the roadblocks remain for other countless families who need a hand up to reach a home of their own.
As regular readers of this column, you know that home building and repair are about helping people over the roadblocks while advocacy is about removing the roadblocks altogether. Razing roadblocks means opening the road for thousands at once and, if you're reading this, you're part of the demolition crew.
For several months, Habitat has been part of a coalition of organizations sledging away at one of the biggest roadblocks of all: the "patchwork" of the U.S. housing finance system. No matter where you are in the U.S., the mix of approaches to address the housing finance system have developed a roadblock on the path to homeownership for many prepared, responsible borrowers in need of safe, healthy and affordable housing.
It all started in 2008, when the housing crisis created confusion and uncertainty in the housing market. In response, lots of "quick fixes" were adopted to try to stop the economic downturn. Now, eight years later, our housing finance system is a patchwork of those quick fixes. This patchwork has blocked many people who should qualify for loans from getting them. The past crash and current system has left everyone too nervous to invest in prospective homeowners; in finance speak, "credit is too tight."
Fortunately, enough time has passed since the collapse of the housing market to know which approaches are working and which are not. We can see that the U.S. government is currently responsible for too much of the housing market, and private parties, meaning banks, investors and homeowners, need to invest in homeownership again in a responsible way. In short, we're calling on Congress to pass comprehensive reform that would restructure the system to ensure the future liquidity, stability and resiliency of housing markets.
Home is where opportunities begin. If everyone who desires to be a responsible homeowner could become one, we'd see incredible benefits for those individuals and families, their communities, and the entire economy. But the U.S. housing market can't fully recover as long as people who would be successful homeowners are blocked. With an ever-increasing number of people across the country struggling to find safe, healthy and affordable housing, now is the time to address the uncertainties of the current regulatory scheme.
It's time to remove the barriers that the "patchwork" of the housing finance system is causing on the road to homeownership. Comprehensive reform will open that road to all prepared and responsible borrowers. Join Habitat for Humanity in saying "no" to patchwork and "yes" to responsible reform!