HBA Habitat Project Celebrates First Decade with Two Homes

The Houston Bar Association’s Habitat for Humanity Project celebrated its 10th anniversary by building two homes in one bar year, a first for the association.
Habitat Co-chairs Randall O. Sorrels of Abraham Watkins Nichols Sorrels and Friend and Nancy J. Brown of Gardere Wynne Sewell LLP started fundraising efforts early in the bar year. By March, they had raised over $118,000 needed to construct two houses. There were 555 firms, corporations, foundations and individuals that contributed to the construction fund, including 100 percent of HBA sections and 100 percent of the HBA board of directors.
The committee then recruited over 250 volunteers to build the homes side by side in the Wood Glen Subdivision, off Hwy. 59 North and Tidwell. Volunteers worked for three consecutive weekends in April to erect the frame, roof the homes, install windows, put on siding, build walls and landscape the properties.
Habitat for Humanity is a worldwide, non-profit ecumenical organization dedicated to eliminating sub-standard housing by helping hard-working, low-income families earn a simple, decent home in which to live. The homeowners must meet certain financial guidelines to obtain a mortgage, attend classes that prepare them for home ownership, and agree to work on other Habitat homes, as well as their own.
The HBA-built houses will be dedicated in July and will become home to Levella Bryant, a toll authority worker, along with her son and two grandchildren, and Ana Lilia Aquilera, a childcare worker, along with her three sons.