A Congregation Framed Them
Volunteers from Central Reformed Church framed and loaded the walls for the next Habitat for Humanity home on Saturday.
Oskaloosa, Iowa – The sound of saws, hammers and the clack of lumber resonated from Central Reformed Church in Oskaloosa on Saturday Morning.
Andy Baker, the Director of Outreach at Central Reformed Church, said that nearly 50 individuals joined together to help frame the walls of the next Habitat for Humanity home in Oskaloosa. “We rotated people in a couple of shifts,” Baker said.
A few volunteers from TJA Construction Inc. lead by Terry Anderson got started at 7 am on Saturday by cutting the wood for when other volunteers started to arrive at 8am. “It took about 4 hours to get all the walls made.”
DRS Trucking then arrived at noon to pick up the finished walls to transport them to a local farm until they are needed for the home. The group had hoped to building the walls on site, but the concrete work for the new home has yet to be completed.
Baker said that then, during a recent service day, a conversation happened with Habitat for Humanity on “how we’d like to frame a house here [church], not just be doing things other places.”
The church and it’s congregation has helped to build homes in Kentucky and Guatemala, “so it would be nice to do something right here in town”.
After a talk with Valinn McReynolds, Executive Director for Mahaska County Habitat for Humanity, Baker said that projects and funding options became available for the church to help.
“As a church, we’re in the transformation business. We want to see lives transformed,” said Baker. “A great way to transform somebody’s life is to get them a house.”
“It’s an exciting thing for us to be a part of,” concluded Baker.
“This was in partner with our first fundraiser,” says McReynolds.
Mahaska County Habitat for Humanity recently held a ‘Stud Finder Fundraiser’ that businesses and groups could sponsor a stud for $100.00. The sponsor of the stud could then decorate it and then returned it to Habitat for use.
Nearly 70 of these donated and decorated studs found their way into the walls that were framed on Saturday.
“It was really nice to see the fundraiser part come together, a church building it, because that’s really the mission of Habitat,” said McReynolds.
