About Us
EVENTS
February 25, 2012
Annual Meeting
February 25, 2012
Annual Meeting
We will hold our annual meeting on Saturday, February 25th at the Federated Church in East Arlington. We will begin with a pot-luck dinner at 5:30 p.m.that will be followed by a brief presentation of our plans for 2012 and beyond. Save the date!
July 21, 2012
Annual Auction
Annual Auction
We are receiving items now for our annual auction. Let
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know if you want to donate items or help organize the auction.
About Us
"The great use of life is to spend it for something that will outlast it."
William James
Learn about our
- Mission
- What is Habitat?
- What is our strategic plan?
- Where have you built homes?
- Goals for the next three years
We strive to make safe, sufficient, affordable housing a matter of conscience and action for all members of our community. We seek to create homeownership opportunities and lasting financial security for low-income families in our county.
- Every year in January our board reviews our strategic plan - celebrates its accomplishments and sets new goals for the coming year. Click the link below to review our updated strategic plan. We welcome your comments and your help in making this year another great year of accomplishment.
Habitat for Humanity International is an ecumenical Christian organization with over 2,300 affiliates in all 50 states, Canada, Australia, Europe, Asia, Africa and South America.
Updated housing numbers -- Habitat for Humanity surpassed its 500,000 house milestone during its most recent fiscal year. Since the nonprofit organization was founded in 1976, its self-help, hand-up model has resulted in rehabbed, repaired or new housing for more than 2.5 million people worldwide.
The Bennington Area Habitat for Humanity affiliate is part of this global effort. Read more.
Established in 1997, the Bennington Area Habitat for Humanity affiliate is an all-volunteer organization that invites people of all backgrounds, races and religions to build homes together in partnership with families in need. (Learn about Millard Fuller, founder of Habitat for Humanity) We have completed twelve homes, including one completely renovated home and ten new homes.
We serve all of Bennington County. It has two county seats, Manchester and Bennington, (Northshire and Southshire). A very high percentage of the people living and working in Bennington County do not have sufficient income to afford a home. Further, there is a shortage of workforce affordable housing. To pay the median price of a new home would require an annual income of $85,000 and $18,000 in cash for closing and down payment costs.31 Seventy-six percent of Vermont’s households have annual incomes below $85,000. Learn more about Bennington County.
When we build a home, we
- Include people of all different skill levels as volunteers.
- Require each adult in the homeowner family to contribute at least 250 hours of sweat equity.
- Raise money from area residents, community and religious organizations to offset costs.
- Build stronger local communities by bringing diverse groups of people together to achieve a common goal.
- Sell Habitat homes to partner families at no profit and provide no interest mortgages.
- Recycle mortgage payments into a fund used to build more houses.
- Provide support for partner families during and after construction.
Please contact us to let us know if you are interested in working with us on site or behind the scenes on one of our committees.
Goals for the next three years – adopted by the board in September 2007. meeting.
- Complete two homes/serve two new families each calendar year.
- Work with other community organizations to support families in need and explore the possibilities of cooperation in affordable housing projects.
- Purchase land on which we can build in the next three years so we always have land on hand prior to a search for a family partner.
- Acquire space to keep mandated files and space to store our equipment.
- Create a plan to increase awareness of our mission and contribution to Bennington County to secure greater financial and voluntary support.
- Secure sufficient financial resources to realize our goals. We estimate that we will need close to $220,000 annually from the local community to purchase land, building supplies, and services to build two homes, helping two families every year.
- Create a sustainable organizational structure capable of realizing these goals.