Arbury Home Open House and Dedication
Penny Prince and her daughter will soon be moving into their new home on Arbury Street. MCHFH held an open house and home dedication to celebrate.
The Arbury home was built in partnership with the City of Midland and Midland Public Schools Building Trades program. The students worked in partnership with Midland County Habitat for Humanity (MCHFH) volunteers and contractors to learn the different trades. The partnership with the building trades program provides experience for the student’s post-secondary choices through authentic experiences.
This program provides students an opportunity to work side-by-side with industry professionals and learn about several different trades including carpentry, plumbing, drywall, painting, HVAC, and more.
The Arbury home held an open house where the general public could tour the home and learn more about the Midland County Habitat for Humanity programs and services with a home dedication afterwards.Home dedications are a sweet celebration of another Habitat family completing the process of home ownership. At the dedication community partners stopped by with gifts and words of encouragement. Pastor Danielle from Trinity Lutheran Church in Midland provided a heart warming blessing of the home and all who gather in it. She also presented Penny and her daughter Breanna with quilts made by their church’s quilting group. Penny’s Family Advocate, Tammy Metevia, gifted her with a bible for her home. It is the desire of MCHFH that every family selected will be a successful homeowner and their success is often fostered through the relationship between the family and their Family Advocate. The Family Advocate serves as a liaison between the family in the program, and MCHFH to ensure that the family understands the requirements of becoming a Habitat homeowner and that they have fulfilled all the requirements prior to moving into their home.
Gifts were also presented from the Midland County Emergency Food Pantry Network. The acknowledge the stress of moving into a new home and hope to take some of that burden off the family by helping provide groceries when moving. Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary Catholic Church provided a basket full of cleaning supplies and paper products to help the new home owners along with a picnic table their youth group made. They hope the family can gather around the picnic table for family functions in their new back yard. .
Sandra Bennett of Floyd Arbor Gleaners Life Insurance Society, presented the family with a fire extinguisher for the home. Sandra jokingly said she “hopes you never have to use it” but was happy to provide such a great safety tool.
The home marks a new beginning and a new journey of health. Penny’s daughter was having complications with her asthma due to the conditions of the apartments they were living in. They are excited to have a new home that was built to be an affordable, high-performance home. MCHFH homes are built to ENERGY STAR new home standards and have an HERS rating in the mid 40’s. MCHFH approaches building new homes with a long view, working to build an efficient home that will have lower utility payments to keep the homes affordable. With an emphasis on high-performance homes, we are bringing our vision—a world where everyone has a decent place to live—to reality.