Our Habitat: Willing Hearts & Willing Hands By Matthew Whittle

During the COVID-19 pandemic if you called Habitat for Humanity of Goldsboro-Wayne looking for a volunteer opportunity, odds were you had to wait to be put on our schedule. We only fully closed to volunteers for a short period of time, but for most of 2020 and at the beginning of this year, we were limited in the number of volunteers on our sites and in our ReStore.

And that was difficult. Not only because we rely heavily on volunteers to help build affordable homes and better futures for families, but because we had so many willing hearts and willing hands wanting to come make a difference in the lives of families in our community.

The good news, though, is that now that we are pretty much back to normal, those willing hearts and willing hands are still here. Folks understood. And as we have reached a degree of normalcy, it’s been so much fun and so uplifting to hold build events again and hear hammers on our job sites.

You might have seen – or rather heard – the video on our Facebook page about a month ago from our Women Build 2021 event. It sounded like a rampaging flock of wood peckers had descended on North Georgia Avenue. Of course we’d had hammers going on our sites previously, but this was the first day of a build event with nearly 20 people back on site, building the walls for our house, all swinging away at once.

And it sounded glorious. It was the sound of willing hearts and willing hands.

Picture Caption:

Rebecca Whittle works on the Habitat job site at 709 N. Georgia Ave during Women Build 2021 in April.