Haiti family begins new life together in ‘Christmas tree’ house -- Habitat for Humanity Int'l 1
Haiti family begins new life together in ‘Christmas tree’ house
Raymonde Exantus of Newburgh, N.Y. offers her thanks to the volunteers and Habitat staff who worked on her family’s new home.
|
|
The new home was built using lumber from the 2010 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree.
|
By Adam Rondeau
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Newburgh in New York’s Hudson Valley dedicated a very special home and helped one local family obtain the gift of affordable housing.
Lumber milled from the 2010 Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree was used by volunteers to help build a Habitat for Humanity home where the Exantus family, formally of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, will live.
Raymonde Exantus followed her daughter to the United States and settled in Newburgh with hopes of building a better life for her family.
Her youngest three sons remained in Port-au-Prince with their grown brother.
Then in January 2010, like so many others, Exantus’s children lost everything they had in Haiti when the 7.0-magnitude earthquake near Haiti’s capital devastated the country. Exantus immediately returned to Haiti when news of the quake reached her and lived on the streets with her children while she made arrangements to bring them back to Newburgh.
Now, nearly two years later, the younger Exantus boys — ages 14, 17 and 19 — attend school in Newburgh and will live in the newly built Habitat house with their mother.
“The first thing I am going to do when I move in is pray to God and thank him because I now have my home,” said Exantus.
“When I heard about Habitat and what they offered, I knew it was perfect for my mom,” said Maria Janvier, Exantus’ only daughter, who is a nursing student at Sullivan County Community College. “Now I don’t have to worry about my mother and my brothers having a safe home.”
Since 2007, Tishman Speyer, the owner and operator of Rockefeller Center, has donated lumber from the tree to Habitat for Humanity.
Habitat has previously used the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree lumber to help build homes and raise awareness about its work in in Pascagoula, Miss.; New York City; and Stamford, Conn.
“This build has been a labor of love for all involved, especially the Exantus family, and the donation of the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree lumber has made this home even more special” said Cathy Collins, executive director for Habitat for Humanity of Greater Newburgh.
“We are extremely grateful and honored to have received this gift. The Rockefeller Center tree is a symbol of the Christmas season that everyone recognizes.
Through repurposing the tree into lumber to be used in helping to build this affordable home for the Exantus family, its legacy of joy and hope will carry on for years to come.”
The home was built as part of Habitat Newburgh’s East Parameter Street Revitalization project. This development replaces boarded up, uninhabitable buildings in a blighted neighborhood with 24 affordable homes.