We're 64% of the Way There!

We're getting there!

We have received several donations over the past few days and we're up to $3,842.98!!

It was an especially nice boost to receive a box of rolled pennies from the Habitat ReStore in Victoria (thanks John & Margot!) as well as a generous donation from the Habitat for Humanity Victoria Board. In addition to supporting our trip to Ghana, Habitat Victoria has also committed to build a home in Argentina!

We are very grateful for the support of the local Habitat Affiliate and are looking forward to returning home and hosting a photo slide show presentation to share our experiences with the board and our other donors as well.

In terms of other news, we have received some more direction about our travel Visa's and this is making it all seem so much more real! For the past two months we have been very focussed on raising awareness and planning our fundraising events and so now the reality that we will actually be traveling to Africa in just 8 weeks is setting in!!! We have met many people who have lived and volunteered in Ghana so now we are eagerly connecting with them to learn all we can about where we are going. We have been reading books (such as: The Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuscinki, Lonely Planet West Africa and The Famished Road by Ben Okri) checking out travel blogs and learning all we can about Ghana.

We have yet to hear exactly which village we will be in, but we do have a good sense of what our building experience might be like based on photos we have seen of some other Global Village Builds.

First, here is a photo of a Habitat Ghana family in front of their family home. In Ghana, many rural homes are wooden structures with mud walls and bamboo or palm thatch roofs and provide shelter for the entire extended family. Roofs must be replaced often to prevent collapse of the house and heavy rains can destroy mud foundations or cause entire walls to collapse. Families continue to occupy the remaining part of the house which is therefore very crowded.



The homes we will build will likely be made with earth and cement bricks, made as seen below, and will have cement floors and aluminum roofs.




Houses are typically two rooms and will likely include a kitchen and shower as well as a toilet which may be attached or detached from the main dwelling.



We have also learned that we will likely be volunteering in a Habitat community which may look something like this, which gives you an idea of what the finished homes look like.


All of these photos are from the Habitat Ghana website and looking at them again, gets me thinking about all kinds of things . . . how will we pack everything we need, will we survive the heat, will we be fit enough to build with these blocks? Mostly though I am excited and can't wait to meet and get to know our team mates from across Canada, I can't wait to try Ghanaian food and I can't wait to meet the families we will be building alongside!

Thanks for helping us get there everyone! We're getting close to our goal, thanks to each and every one of you!

Brandy

Mmmm BBQ!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out to our M&M Meat Shops Building for Ghana Charity BBQ!

A BIG thank you! to Richard and his staff at M&M Meats Shops and also to Jon and his staff at Cobs Bread for their generous support of the BBQ! We were serving up some delicious Tasty Burgers and hot dogs on delicious Cobs buns!

Sharon, Alison & Chantal serve up a hot dog, assembly line style:
BBQ --> Bun --> Serving Bag - nicely done women!

We also have to send a big thank you out to our friends who volunteered to help out by flipping and serving burgers and hot-dogs and enticing donors to our table while spreading the word about Habitat for Humanity and our house building trip to Ghana. Thank you Al, Alison, Chantal, Crystal, Emma, Gerry, Jen, Sharon, Mike & Zeta - you guys ROCK!!!

Crystal and Zeta were working hard to cut the buns Cobs Bread donated.


The well gloved Al & Alison were serving up some delicious BBQ!
He could have used these later on when he helped us clean
the grill - what a trouper!

We met a few people who had some wisdom and advice to share about traveling to Africa which was awesome as always! I think we also recruited a few more skilled trades volunteers for Habitat for Humanity Victoria which is always a good thing.

Gerry our Master BBQ'er

Chantal, our Mistress BBQ'er

Overall the weather was great and we couldn't have asked for a warmer, sunnier day in September - the clouds held off and we had loads of happy customers.

Little Emma, and I don't think our other volunteers would take offense
if I said she was our cutest volunteer, did a great job of handing out coupons to
our donors - here she's taking a well deserved hot dog break.


Jen came by to do some street side advertising.
Here she is hiding beside her impromptu sign!

A special thanks also goes out to our new friend Mikhail who came by with his parents after karate. He enjoyed a hot dog and soon he was our biggest supporter, telling every passer-by what we were all about and that a hamburger or hot dog was "just a donation" - great job Mikhail - thank you!

Our new friend, Mikhail

All in all, it was a great success and we were able to raise $624.86 - thanks Victoria! That officially puts us over the half way point for our $6,000 goal - we're getting there!

BBQ Madness!

Well, I'm off to bed but I hope to see lots of you tomorrow at our big BBQ!

If you're in beautiful Victoria, join us from 11am - 3pm at 3637 Shelbourne Street at Cedar Hill Cross Road. A special thanks to Richard and the team at M&M Meat Shops and Jon and his team at Cobs Bakery for their support!

Not only can you buy a tasty hot dog or hamburger, but you can also buy your own Habitat House for a $2 donation at both the M&M Meat Shops and Cobs Bakery locations at Shelbourne Plaza. We're hoping each store window will be filled with these, creating our own little Habitat Village ; )

M&M Meat Shops Building for Ghana Charity BBQ

M&M Meat Shops Building for Ghana Charity BBQ

11am-3pm Saturday, September 22, 2007

3637 Shelbourne Street (Shelbourne and Cedar Hill X Rd.)

Come on out on Saturday to enjoy some burgers or hot dogs and don’t forget to tell everybody about our barbecue!

Thanks so much to Gerry, Chantal, Zeta, Crystal, Alison and Al who have offered to volunteer for the event. If anybody out there is interested, we are still looking for volunteers to come give us a hand on Saturday flipping burgers and hotdogs and to help with set up and tear down. We especially need a hand with a vehicle to transport some tables and supplies to the event.

We hope to see you there!! And please spread the word.

The 2^nd Garage Sale was a success!!

We raised $236.58!!

Thank you very much to the Victoria READ Society for donating all the garage sale items. Also to Mike and Megan for helping out with pulling all the desks, chairs and tables out of the shed that held all the goodies donated by the READ Society.

We have now raised 40.6% of our $6000 fundraising goal!! Thank you to everyone who has been sending their donations in, it has been very exciting to check the mail every day. For those who still wish to donate, you can click here to donate online now. Every bit helps and gets us closer to our goal – thank you!

Garage sale success!

A very big thanks to everyone who donated items and helped out setting things up on Saturday. The grand total raised was $1,039.88!!!

Jen & Sharon - our early rising helpers!

We met a lot of people on Saturday who were very supportive of the Habitat cause. We were also able to spread the word about the work that Habitat does both internationally and in Victoria. I think we recruited a few volunteers for the build site and also a few donations for the ReStore for sure.


So many people were also happy to have a coffee and a cookie and drop some change in our collection jar then browse the donated items. We received a lot of great items and this sale’s success was most certainly a result of a living room full of donations we received from so many people - there were tons of furniture and big ticket items too which helped to raise a lot of money! Even if nothing was to their liking some people would still give a couple of dollars to support Habitat for Humanity. One guy was driving by and saw the banner, he quickly (somewhat safely) pulled over, jumped out and gave Brandy five dollars! Wow! We also met a gentleman from Ghana who didn’t need anything either, but also gave a donation. Another kind lady shopped and shopped and purchased a big mirror which we helped her move into her car - she was so grateful she gave us a whole loaf of delicious Patisserie Daniel seed bread!


Of course the sale had some ferociousness to it. The early birds came early to no surprise and were looking for good deals. As I was bringing out the boxes full of books, the bargain hunters (and dealers!) eagerly began rifling through them as I put them down, which kind of reminded me of feeding cows back on the farm!

So are we crazy to be doing this all again this Saturday? You bet! Brandy has been working at the Victoria READ Society filling in on reception for a few weeks and they are in the middle of a move after 30 years in the same location. While a large number of the items left in the very nice old house are not needed, there are some that will be needed in the new space, and yes they are at the back of the garage. So, in return for offering to help them move some items we have the opportunity to host another garage sale with proceeds going towards our fundraising efforts. So, if you’re in the market for desk, bookshelf or other office type items, this is the sale for you!

_____________________

Building for Ghana Fundraising Garage Sale, The 2nd

Saturday, September 15 - 8am-11am

720 Linden Avenue
(between Richardson and Rockland - NE of the Cook & Fairfield intersection)

Desks (various sizes and styles – wood, laminate & steel)
Filing Cabinets * Credenza * Bookshelves * Stacking Chairs * Assorted Metal & Plastic Desk-top Paper/File/Mail Sorters * Chalkboard * Bulletin Boards * Boxes of Binders
Halogen Lamps * Misc. Computer Odds & Ends * Coffee Mugs * Holiday Decorations
_____________________

We’ve got a few good friends lined up to help us move items Saturday morning around 6:30/7am, but we could certainly use more - we promise lots of snacks!

Oh and don’t forget our M&M Meats Charity BBQ next Saturday, September 22 from 11am-3pm at 3637 Shelbourne Street. We’re still in need of donations of hamburger and hot dog buns and could use a few more volunteers as well.

On another note too, you may have noticed our thermometer has changed and our fundraising goal is now $6,000. We’ve decided to take the opportunity to explore more of Ghana following our volunteer build before we head home for Christmas and good old Revenue Canada dictates that we can only fundraise for 50% of our airfare in that case - so, the good news is that we have now raised 35% of our goal!

We've Hit $1,000!

Very exciting news indeed - thanks to everyone who has donated so far, we have now officially raised $1,090.33 - we are almost at 15% of our goal, thank you!

We have received donations online (woo hoo, the links work!), a donation from the sale of someone's car (how cool is that!?!), several generous donations from the local faith community and we have received an entire room full of items for this Saturday's garage sale (I'd show you a photo but some of you might have a heart attack at the state of our apartment at the moment!).

One of the biggest donations we received was from a colleague of Bruce's - he was trying to sell a very nice solid maple dining room set which included 6 chairs, a table with leaves and a buffet and hutch combination. His ad was still online so late last week we received a call from an interested buyer who came to view the items on Friday. David was very nice and he and his friend were sold on the set so a deal was struck and they left a portion of the payment and we made arrangements for the set to be picked up early this week. As David was leaving he told me how interested he was in the work we would be doing in Africa and told me that he had built some homes in Haiti about 20 years ago. He then asked if there was anything else we needed and I mentioned that we were still looking for donations of items for our garage sale and were also in need of buns for our upcoming BBQ. He left, saying he would be in touch with some other form of support.

Well, less than two hours later he called back to say he had collected over $80 in cash since he had been at our house - I was almost in shock! We were complete strangers to him and he was acting on our behalf to raise funds for our trip - amazing! Of course I thanked him, though I was still close to speechless, and by 9pm that night he called back to say he was in the neighbourhood and wanted to come by and drop off the money he had collected that day. In the envelope, David had collected $125 from his was co-workers at Metro-Lexus Toyota - amazing indeed, thank you David!

On that inspirational note, I'm excited to see what this weekend holds. Our experience with other charity garage sales we have hosted has been so positive and we often meet many people who are already affected by, or are involved, with the cause. So often when we tell others about our trip, they share stories of their own involvement with Habitat or their own experience in Africa. I can't wait to meet more like-minded people this weekend!

Now here's the plug . . . don't forget:

Building For Ghana - Fundraising Garage Sale, Bake Sale & BBQ

Saturday, September 8, 2007
2310 Fernwood Rd
8:00 am-1:00 pm

We're still accepting items so if you've got something to donate, please call or email us and we can make arrangements - we'll be at home tomorrow evening and Friday after 8:45ish. We could especially use baking (home made or not) and a stash or two of plastic bags if you've got them - we've received a large number of clothes so they'll be 'Fill a Bag for $4'.

We could also use an extra hand or two if you're up and at 'em bright and early Saturday and want to help us set everything up between 6:30-8am - any help, if even at 7:59 would be appreciated! As I mentioned, our living room is stacked to the brim and thanks to everyone's donations, we've got a lot of merchandise to move!

So, if you're in the neighbourhood, please stop by. The coffee with be hot, there should be lots of treats (M&M Bars & Zucchini Bread for sure so far) and the hot and veggie dogs will be on the grill at 10am!
As promised here are a few photos of the House Dedication we attended on August 25th.

Over the past two years, volunteers with Habitat for Humanity Victoria have been working alongside the Ahmed and Henderson families to build their homes, a duplex in the Brentwood Bay area of Central Saanich (just north of Victoria and south of Sidney). We hoped on our bikes and took a ride out to witness the dedication ceremony which included an official presentation of house keys to both families, ribbon cuttings, house tours and of course, cake! It truly was a celebration!

Tajudin Ahmed receives the keys to his family's new home from
Habitat Victoria President, Robert Anderson and one of the project supporters.

Both the Ahmed and Henderson families put in over 500 hours into building their homes. The emotion and gratitude was all over their faces and it was amazing to be there to witness this pride in homeownership. Tajudin Ahmed was particularly emotional and I can only imagine this was compounded by the fact that his wife and four children could not be there for the ceremony as they had to return to Ethiopia for a family emergency. We spoke with Taj briefly following the ceremony, over cake and told him of our plans to go to Ghana. He shared a bit about Africa with us and spoke highly of Ghana - we were quickly reminded how much Africa is a continent of contrasts though as Taj told us he can't return to his home country of Ethiopia for political reasons and fear of his safety.

The Henderson family has just cut the ribbon to their new home,
surrounded by volunteers and supporters.

These are extremely lovely homes. They may not appear like a 'typical Habitat home' to some of you who are familiar with Habitat, but in Greater Victoria it is difficult to build any old house, in any old neighbourhood. In this case, this home was built on a lot donated by a local developer. The corner lot is situated at the bottom of the development and up the street, there are several close to $1 million homes. The very exciting news about this development and Habitat's partnership with the developer is that the municipality mandated affordable housing as part of this development. As many of you may know, average house prices in Victoria are amongst the highest in the country ($574,753 as of July) and finding safe, decent affordable housing in Victoria to rent, let alone to by is out of reach for most families. The Henderson's were truly ecstatic to receive their keys - Dave Hnderson spoke after receiving them and couldn't say enough to share his gratitude to everyone involved with Habitat Victoria.

After we had caught up with everyone, had our fill of cake and were almost ready to jump back on our bikes and head home, we realised we hadn't toured the houses yet! So, we carefully removed our shoes at the door and stepped inside. I hadn't been out to the site since early July when the Victoria AbeBooks staff had been out for a Team Build Day to move top soil on one of the warmest days of the summer! At that time, the kitchens were still just drywall, tape and sub-floor and we ate lunch off of a door on a saw horse - now take a look at the finished product:

Brandy & Derek Draper, Habitat Victoria Construction Manager, in the finished
kitchen of the Henderson home - beautifully done Derek and volunteers!

And here is the view point right around the corner from these new homes - all the best to the Ahmed and Henderson families in their beautiful new homes in their beautiful new neighbourhood.

We sure are blessed to live here.

And, as a final note, for those who are interested, Habitat Victoria is also working hard to complete another duplex in Sidney for the Elliott and Forrester/Smith families. We are planning on heading up there one weekend very soon to try our hand at a build site for the very first time! (We figured we should get some heavy labour in before we leave for Ghana!). If you are interested let us know or visit www.habitatvictoria.com to register to volunteer.

That's it, that's all! Good night, good night!