On Monday, June 19, local “celebrities” from around Preble County acted as servers for a special fundraising effort for Preble County Habitat for Humanity. Pictured, U.S. Congressman Warren Davidson speaks with guests during the event.
On Monday, June 19, local “celebrities” from around Preble County acted as servers for a special fundraising effort for Preble County Habitat for Humanity. Buckeye Jake’s restaurant was the site of the fundraiser, bringing everyone from Eaton Mayor Joe Renner and State Rep. Rodney Creech to U.S. Congressman Warren Davidson to the table to act as servers for a good cause — Preble County Habitat’s next home build.
WEST ALEXANDRIA — On Monday, June 19, local “celebrities” from around Preble County acted as servers for a special fundraising effort for Preble County Habitat for Humanity.
Buckeye Jake’s restaurant was the site of the fundraiser, bringing everyone from Eaton Mayor Joe Renner and State Rep. Rodney Creech to U.S. Congressman Warren Davidson to the table to act as servers for a good cause — Preble County Habitat’s next home build.
“Habitat does affordable housing,” PC Habitat President Kathy Clapp said. “We cannot own, lease or rent properties, but we put people in properties that they make application for and we know can afford the mortgage. They do carry a mortgage and they have to have a job. They actually work so many hours at the property. They follow very closely with a custom plan that we give them for success to be able to stay in their home. “We pretty much know everything they do,” Clapp noted. “And we mentor them.”
“This is homeownership, and it is great to have homeownership,” Clapp said. A lot of these people were coming from struggles in their life and have come to a point where their credit score is high enough that they can actually get into a home and we just kind of help them along their away.”
Klapp said Habitat’s mission is helped greatly by many donations from local businesses. “We have a lot of local people that put time in it with everything from building to putting the roof on,” she said.
Habitat builds one house each year. “We had a local gentleman give us a piece of property in West Manchester and that’s our next build,” she noted.
“About 8 months ago, a bunch of us from Habitat went over to Dayton to a church, and there were about 400 people there and we actually built three frames of houses,” Clapp said. “One of them happened to be our house.”
According to Clapp, the framed house is in storage at Bullen Ultrasonics until the foundation can be built at the West Manchester site.
“So many people jumped in,” Clapp said, noting Preble County Commissioner Adam Craft is helping with the electric for the new home.
Approximately 8 months into the process, the selected family is reassessed, according to Clapp. She said families have been disqualified in the past because the board wants to be good stewards of Habitat’s funding. “We don’t want to put them in a position of failure,” she said “Where would they live if something happened? You know we’re the lien holders and if they don’t pay their mortgage, US Bank will not say, ‘hey we’ll put you on payments’ – they’ll foreclose on it. “We give them the tools to succeed and to be able to stay in the home so we know once they get in it, that they are in there to stay.”
Habitat for Humanity is faith-based. “We try to help any homeowner as much as possible but we want them where they have to show us that they can actually do the work,” Clapp said.
Clapp said she brought together a lot of elected officials for the Celebrity Servers event, “because at the state level they need to hear our voice, whether it be affordable housing for Habitat.”
“We do have to do fundraisers to keep money coming into Habitat, plus we have the Restore (in Eaton)” Clapp noted. “And then that money goes into our builds.”
Preble County Habitat plans on doing more events like the recent Celebrity Servers event at other venues around the county in the future.
Reach Eddie Mowen Jr. at 937-683-4061 and follow on Twitter @emowenjr.
