Carrie & Cameron Home for Christmas in the Thrivent Builds – Lutheran House
“Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night” can keep dedicated Thrivent, Lutheran, and Habitat volunteers from their mission to improve life for families, one house at a time. Carrie Rejonis and her six year old son Cameron smiled as their house was dedicated Dec. 5, 2010, climaxing a year of hard work and struggle for the Thrivent-Lutheran-Habitat team and two years’ wait for Carrie.
“It was a lot of hard, hard — it was a lot of struggle,” Carrie said. Besides working on her own home, Carrie earned some of her 500 sweat equity hours working on the homes of five other families, completed a financial management course, and learned other skills for self-sufficiency. In spite of the hard work and wait, Carrie credits Habitat for making home ownership possible for her family.
Thrivent Financial for Lutherans is a not-for-profit financial service organization, which offers a variety of financial products and services, with everything from life insurance to mutual funds. Local Thrivent financial advisor Bob Budnicki helped champion the project, with Thrivent Financial contributing 65 per cent of the cost of the home. The Lutheran Churches of Washington County, led by Pastors Ed Heim and Roland Hobbs, contributed 10% of the cost and more than 50% of the volunteers. This is the second house built in partnership with Thrivent Financial and the third built with the Lutheran churches of the county. It is Habitat’s 33rd home built locally.
Countless volunteers added to make the chorus of “I’ll be home for Christmas” both a dream and a reality for Carrie and Cameron.
Thrivent & Lutherans partner with Habitat
on Second House
Thrivent & Lutherans partner with Habitat for second house Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and the Lutheran churches of Washington County will sponsor their second house with HFHWC in 2010. Thrivent Financial will fund 65% of the necessary funds through the Thrivent Builds program, and the local churches will contribute 10%. Half of the churches’ funds were already raised during the 2009 build. The house will be built in the Whispering Hills neighborhood of Smithsburg.
Carrie and her five-year-old son Cameron will be the owners of the 2010 Thrivent Builds house. Carrie has already completed many of her “sweat equity” hours through working on other Habitat families’ homes, taking a financial management course, meeting regularly with her family partner to establish goals, and helping with Habitat events. Carrie is a Lutheran herself and is a member of Trinity Lutheran Church in Smithsburg.
Thrivent Build House Dedicated
Walls Raised on Thrivent Builds house!
Saturday, July 10th Lutherans, Thrivent Financial members, homeowner-to-be Carrie and her friends and family, and Habitat staff and board members came out to celebrate and raise the first walls of the house. By the end of the day all of the exterior and interior walls were in place.
Carrie hammers the first nail in the first wall of her house
Second wall goes up
To see more pictures of the Thrivent Build project click here »
