Building homes for families

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Rae Perry
  • 4th Fighter Wing Public Affairs
SEYMOUR JOHNSON AIR FORCE BASE, N.C. --  It is not about just earning a performance report bullet when Airmen and their families donate time to build houses helping others overcome hurdles in their lives.

Chaplain (Maj.) Andrew Pak gathered a group of Team Seymour Airmen and dependents to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity, a non-profit organization that builds houses for families in need of a home, May 10, 2011.

In order to be considered as a potential home owner, a family must undergo a screening process and complete 100 volunteer hours with the organization. If selected, they must donate an additional 300 volunteer hours on their potential home or another family's home to learn about maintenance and upkeep.

Tony Smith, Habitat for Humanity construction manager, explained how being so close to the base impacts the amount of volunteers the organization has.

"We try to figure around three months [to build each] house. Sometimes it's less; sometimes it's more depending on the [amount] volunteers we get," Mr. Smith said "We usually get [Airmen] out here every Saturday and that helps us out a lot. We get most of our work done when I get Air Force groups out here."

The family receiving the home the Airmen worked on expect to move in later this month, after a ceremony the volunteers will receive a tour of the house and hand the keys over to the new home owner.

"I enjoy this job and it's been fun doing it because of the people we meet out here and the families we get to help," Mr. Smith said.