Three-year-old Taylor Hayes ran around the inside of her nearly-finished house, imagining what it was like to live there, while her parents and therest of the adults huddled around a space heater to ward off the January chill.

Then, as a volunteer helping to build the Habitat for Humanity home turned on a saw, Taylor hid in a closet. When it was turned off, Taylor poked her head out and eventually emerged to romp around the house again until the saw came back to life.

Taylor, you see, along with her parents, Bill and Sherry, brother, Will, 15, and sister, Crystal, 13, simply can’t wait for the home to be finished so they can move in.

“ I’m counting down the days,” said Sherry. “We’re all very excited.”

The Hayes’ house wouldn’t have been built without the efforts of the Down River Association of REALTORS® and countless volunteers who have worked tirelessly to help finish the home.

“ I saw it as a challenge, for me and for the entire association,” said 2003 DRAR Past President Mary Ross, GRI. “About four years ago, 1999 Past President Doris LaBeau asked me what my goal was for my presidency. We’d talked about the build that NAR does at the convention, and about affordable housing, and how we could give back to the community.”

The impact of DRAR’s generosity is seen on the Hayses’ faces when they talk about the home.

“ The REALTORS® have been a really big help,” said Taylor’s father, Bill Hayes. “Whenever we have a need, they’re looking to take care of us.”

Each president since LeBeau brought the association closer to its goal of building a Habitat home. The goal was finally realized during the terms of Ross and 2004 DRAR President Sheri Fricke.

The foundation for the build

The average Habitat home costs $60,000 to build. Not only did the association have to raise the money, it had to create a special foundation to manage the donations. So, with the support of the DRAR board of directors and the community outreach committee, Ross and DRAR Executive Vice President Elaine Adkins set up the Down River Association of REALTORS® Charitable Foundation to support the program.

The slogan of the foundation is: REALTORS® helping people today for a better tomorrow. Though it was first used to fund the Habitat project, it also supports other charity initiatives from DRAR.

Once the foundation was up and running, a building site had to be secured, materials had to be purchased and donated, and volunteers had to be organized. DRAR member Marc Newman, GRI, was site superintendent for the project, and member Corrie Dye was volunteer coordinator.

“ We probably had hundreds of people who worked on the home,” Dye said. “We had a lot of volunteers who donated money for food, and some churches, businesses and volunteer organizations also helped.”

“ The committee took on one of the biggest projects first,” 2004 DRAR President Sheri Fricke said. “Now the association has the experience, knowledge and people in place so we can move forward to bigger and better things.”

Habitat for Humanity: today and tomorrow

Alice Dent is the director of Habitat for Humanity of Western Wayne County, the local partner with the Down River Association of REALTORS®. She said partnerships with organizations, like the one between the Hayes family and DRAR are what make the program work.

“ DRAR has brought a totally new group of people to our organization that we probably wouldn’t have been able to establish a relationship with otherwise,” Dent said.

Habitat for Humanity participants must fit three qualifications. The most important one is that they can’t get affordable housing through any other means. Second, they have to be willing to put in “sweat equity,” working at least 250 hours on their house. Third, they need to show that they can make the mortgage payments.

Dr. Ken Bensen, president of Habitat for Humanity of Michigan, said: “We’ve built close to 2,400 houses in Michigan, and not one of these families would have been able to qualify for a bank loan. This program is very successful.”

Habitat for Humanity doesn’t just build homes. It also works closely with REALTORS® to put refurbished computers into Habitat homes. REALTORS® Connecting Families to Their Futures just finished off a fund-raiser in 2003, raising a little more than $23,000 for the program. All in all, 30 local associations, including the Down River Association of REALTORS®, reached or surpassed their goals of one dollar donated for each member.
Habitat is also planning for the Jimmy Carter Work Project in 2005, and Vision 2020. Habitat for Humanity wants to eliminate substandard housing in 20 Michigan communities by 2020. The organization is working with six other charities to reach this goal.

Time to go home

By press time, the Hayes family will have moved into their home. They’ve put more than 300 hours of work into its construction, and have also helped with homes in surrounding communities. Bill Hayes said he’d never forget the commitment and kindness shown by DRAR’s members.

“ If Habitat works together with Michigan REALTORS® and area associations, with the same concept they did here, we’ll get more houses built,” he said. “They can use this build as a model to work out the kinks, logistics and coordination.”

Adkins knows that REALTORS® across the state are up to that challenge.

“ Our members believed in the program, and made it work,” she said. “The whole Down River Association of REALTORS®, not just the committee, put their money, time and resources where their mouths were. I can honestly say we had nearly 100 percent participation.”