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Touch
of Gray - February 2003
Carolina
Meadows Fully Funds a Habitat Home
Our Board President Honored in Chapel
Hill
Carolina
Meadows Fully Funds a Habitat Home
Our postal address is Chapel Hill and many of our residents
are active in Chapel Hill community efforts, including Meals
on Wheels, teaching in the Senior Center, providing help on
tax returns and serving as Hospice and Hospital volunteers.
We co-sponsor Camp Meadowwood for the OPC Mental Health Foundation
every summer.
But our first loyalty is to our home County of Chatham where
we live and pay our taxes. We are one of the major supporters
of the Chatham United Way, reaching higher goals every year.
We organize successful food drives for the CORA Food Bank
and we volunteer in the County's Food Pantry. Residents also
serve as arbitrators for the District Court in Pittsboro.
Carolina Meadows provides and maintains a Community Soccer
Field for the Chatham Soccer League. Chatham County Schools
know many of our residents as teacher aides and administrative
assistants. We have assisted Chatham County Together! with
a back-to-school support drive including book bags for 60
youngsters.
But the big news now is our very special involvement with
Chatham Habitat for Humanity, the organization that provides
qualified families with affordable housing. Chatham Habitat's
39th house, now under construction, is being completely funded
by donations from the residents and staff of Carolina Meadows.
To our knowledge, this is the very first time a Continuing
Care Retirement Community in North Carolina has fully funded
a Habitat home.
In 1998, Habitat's Board of Directors set the goal of building
seven houses annually by 2003. "Though we will not actually
complete seven houses in 2003, we are taking on a significant
development project in Siler City that will yield as many
as 40 lots for affordable housing." Kay Taylor, Habitat's
Director of Development, reported. "Much of our effort
in 2003, in addition to completing the Carolina Meadows house
and three more houses in Pittsboro, is to be engaged in predevelopment
work on the 11 acre Siler City site that will enable us to
start construction on several houses there in the Fall of
2003."
More than forty residents and staff of Carolina Meadows gathered
at the construction site of the new home on Eastwood Drive
in Pittsboro on January 8. The official groundbreaking was
originally planned for early December, but our spectacular
Ice Storm interfered with that! So the official dedication
was reset for January 8, which turned out to be a sunny and
clear day though still a little muddy underfoot.
As Bill Patchett, President of Chatham Habitat's Board of
Directors noted, just a month earlier the site of the new
home was an overgrown lot where an old stone well and the
ruins of a local church once stood - the Church of God of
Prophecy. By January 8, the lot had been cleared, the footings
set and construction was well under way with the help of local
volunteers ably assisted by Americorps members and a group
of twelve second year medical students from UNC, giving up
their break time to work for Habitat. A blessing was given
by Reverend Eva Lee, the former pastor of The Church of God
of Prophecy. All responded by joining in the Habitat Community
Response: "We are building people…We are building
homes…We are building lives." Six months from now,
Charity Lassiter, who was introduced at the ceremony, will
move into her new home with her infant son and young daughter,
thanks to Carolina Meadows.
After the ceremony Carolina Meadows visitors enjoyed the chance
to inspect two other Habitat houses further along in construction
on Eastwood Drive. Each of these, like the Lassiter house,
has a living room, three bedrooms, one bath, a full kitchen-dinette
and a laundry room with washer and dryer. Habitat also provides
a refrigerator and stove (which, by the way, are donated to
all Habitat affiliates by Whirlpool). The house is heated
and cooled with a heat pump. Habitat homes are enrolled in
an energy efficient program that because of specifications
incorporated into the house design, guarantees that the owner's
heating/cooling bill for the first year will not be more than
$30.00 a month. Each house contains such "universal design"
aspects as hallway doors and bath wide enough for wheelchairs
as well as windows and light switches placed lower for accessibility.
On the way home the two buses carrying the residents made
a stop at the sparkling new Habitat Home Store on West Street
that sells everything from costume jewelry and china to furniture
and appliances. It is open Wednesdays to Fridays from noon
to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. and accepts
everything except clothing and mattresses.
How did Carolina Meadows Habitat home sponsorship come about?
The community's involvement with Habitat did not begin with
this drive. Besides donating individual items over the years
as residents downsized, the community regularly donates household
fixtures, furniture and appliances to Habitat as villas and
apartments change hands. Within the last month our Dining
Services donated 194 dozen no longer used china place settings
for sale in the Chatham Habitat Home Store. Residents who
are members of the Carpenters' Club contribute $25 each time
a new Habitat house is dedicated.
Vickie and Ned Badrow came to Carolina Meadows in 1991. Many
residents knew them over the years as tireless workers for
Chatham Habitat for Humanity. If you had furniture, appliances
or household possessions you no longer needed you called Ned
and Vickie and they picked them up to deliver to the Habitat
Home Store for resale. Ned, who died in December, was known
too as quite a woodworker. His handmade birdhouses were a
popular sales item in the Home Store.
The Badrows believed that Carolina Meadows could do something
more for affordable housing in Chatham County. Why not collect
enough from residents and staff to completely fund our own
Habitat house? Last Spring Vickie got together with Bert Morhart,
another retiree who enjoys hands-on working with the needy.
Vickie and Bert asked the Resident Council for permission
to make such a drive - to raise $50,000.00 to completely fund
an entire Habitat House. They are both busy people. Vickie
is Co-Chair of our Library and Bert is manager of our Gift
Shop. But they made time to promote the project all through
the summer months.
Vickie and Bert would be among the first to admit that last
year was not the greatest time to make such an appeal. With
the market down resident incomes were affected. Competing
for our dollars were the United Way, the annual Employee Appreciation
Gift Fund, and a recently reconstituted Carolina Meadows Endowment
Fund. The campaign ran from May through October and progress
was graphically posted in the Club Center each week, showing
how many rooms had been financed to date.
But we did reach our goal and in November CM Board President
Jean Holcomb and Executive Director Rob Boening handed a check
for $50,375 to Bill Patchett, President of the Chatham Habitat
for Humanity Board and Habitat's Executive Director Amy Powell.
"This is a wonderful outpouring of community pride and
we can hold our heads high knowing that we have supported
our Chatham County neighbors," commented Vickie.
Donating over $50,000.00 for a Habitat house in Chatham County
is not the end of the story for Carolina Meadows. Residents
and staff are planning to help in building the new home for
the Lassiter family. Regular workdays on the site by Carolina
Meadows residents and staff are scheduled until the home is
ready for occupancy. Among those participating are residents
Dick Ballard, Glenn Johnson, John Rocco, Jack Parry and Bert
Morhart. David Hopp, a son-in--law of Vickie Badrow and Physical
Plant employees Jim Herndon, Lance Long and Robert Poteete.
Box lunches for the work parties are provided by Carolina
Meadows. Additionally Bert Morhart says that Tom Sawyer-like
painting days will be scheduled at a later stage of the construction
and many more residents will be invited to lend a hand.
-- Des Reilly, Resident
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Our
Board President Honored in Chapel Hill
Recently Chapel Hill's news radio station
WCHL celebrated its 50th birthday with a program called "Fifty
Who Made a Difference." The show honored 50 men and women
who have made a major impact on the Chapel Hill and Carrboro
community over the past half century. Included was the President
of our Carolina Meadows Board of Directors, Jean Holcomb,
who also heads up Viking Travel. Jean and the other 49 notables
were honored In a Chapel Hill celebration on January 25. This
meant that she had to miss our Scots dinner which she had
planned to attend.
We are indeed fortunate in Carolina Meadows in being able
to call on Jean and other major community business leaders
to devote years of service without remuneration to directing
our activities. By the way did you know that when Gene retires
from running her highly popular travel service she plans to
become a resident of Carolina Meadows?
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