Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Habitat for Humanity

As part of the humanitarian bit of my Parisian adventure, I joined the Paris chapter of Habitat for Humanity through the American Church of Paris. This August, we’ll spend 2 weeks building a home for an underprivileged family in Macedonia. Right now we’re in the process of raising the money it will take to fund our trip (airfare, building supplies, food, etc) and each of us are charged with doing our own personal fund raising as well. This week I spent an evening creating (awful) Easter cards to sell, I’m helping to plan a concert, we’re organizing a dinner, and so much more… we need to raise a pretty substantial amount but we are seriously on our hustle so I think we’ll get there.

I really love the premise of H4H’s Global Village: these houses are SOLD to the family (at a very low rate, of course) rather than given to them for free—the idea being that people respect something more and take care of it when they actually have to pay for it themselves, rather than when its just given to them. So they’ll make monthly payments to Habitat on this home and at the end of 5 years or so, they own the house outright. I think its going to be an awesome experience and cannot wait to go—although Lord knows I am not a builder, do not like doing anything with my hands or any physical labor whatsoever (especially not in the dead heat of August) and am pathetically weak… so it should be interesting!

Anyway, here’s the link if you want to make an online donation (in the part where it asks for your name, please also put my name in parentheses):

DONATE TO HABITAT HERE

Thanks for your support, friends! And remember, all donations are tax deductible! :o)

No comments: