MENTONE - Thirteen women from Lake City Bank from across Indiana took part in the Habitat for Humanity of Kosciusko County Women Build in Mentone Tuesday.
It was the third of 10 planned Women Build days for the Habitat home for Kimber Boyd, her four daughters and mother on North Franklin Street in Mentone.
“One of our core values is community service, and this is one of the many ways that Lake City Bank participates in the community,” Stacy Price, Lake City Bank vice president financial analyst, and a third-year Habitat for Humanity Board of Directors member and events committee chair, said. “I sent out an email inviting women to join me today, and I got more responses than I had spots for, so that was really encouraging - that these women want to take time out of their days and their busy schedules to be here and help us build this house for Kimber.”
Price said three women have taken part in builds in prior years, but the rest were doing it this year for the first time.
“I’ve got some that have traveled this year to be here, so we’ve got somebody from our Indianapolis market here, somebody from our South Bend market, somebody from our Goshen market. So it was really exciting to bring other departments in, and we’ve got some team-building happening in there. So people that don’t usually get to work together closely like that - that’s been really fun to watch,” she said.
The groundbreaking ceremony for the Boyd home was May 30, with Wildman hosting a Panel Build on July 12. A Panel Build is where volunteers from a company build the interior and exterior walls in a company’s parking lot. Since then, the four-bedroom, two-bathroom house has continued to come along.
Ben Logan, Habitat for Humanity of Kosciusko County executive director, said, “As usual, (we) hit a few weather delays. The foundation and concrete and excavation stage, you always get a lot of water. But ever since our Panel Build at Wildman, it’s just been all hands on deck getting the house up.”
On July 30, a group from Kerlin Bus, one of the sponsors, put up the walls from the Panel Build. “And now, here we are!” Logan said. As of Tuesday, all the interior and exterior walls were up. The trusses are on. The roof is going on, with help from G & R Siding, Roofing & Windows.
“And we have our Women Build going on. This is not the first day. Last week we had two days and one got rained out on Friday. So this is the third day, and Lake City Bank, our leading sponsor, is here today. They brought out a group of women to be on the build site,” he said. “So this is where we’re at and we’re excited to be here.”
During a Women Build day, volunteers work from 8 a.m. to noon.
“Traditionally, we built one house per year, so we’ve been doing kind of a Women Build event. It’s not the entire house, but it is kind of this section of time that we have specifically women coming on site. It’s just kind of natural that we have a lot of single moms apply to our program and get in, so we feel it’s really important for women to come and, obviously, be a part of that and just be able to volunteer together, to give together, to do all that. It’s just really meaningful to our home owner,” Logan said.
This year, the Women Build is a bit bigger and more spread out. He said they have six days in August and four in September.

    The Habitat for Humanity of Kosciusko County home on Franklin Street in Mentone is coming along. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union
  

“We actually only had the six days and they filled up almost immediately, so we opened up four more days and those filled up,” he stated.
Companies participating in the build days include Medtronic, Zimmer Biomet, DePuy Synthes, Lake City Bank, First Federal, Paragon Medical and others.
“A lot of sponsors get priority build days. Now we’re doing the Women Build, and then after that is when we start to bring other people in as well,” Logan said. “We have a lot of demand. We can not keep up with the demand for people who want to be on site. It is a very good problem to have.”
The Boyd home will be in the Builders Association’s Homes on Parade. Logan said it’ll be the only home still under construction. Since it’ll be late September, he hoped they would be as far along as possible for the Homes on Parade.
New to this Women Build, Logan said they challenged all the teams coming to the site to help raise money for the house.
“So we’re doing a crowd-funding competition. Each of the teams have their goals to raise money, and there’s also some dollars being matched. So people can find out more about that on our Facebook page, and also if they go to our website and go to our Women Build page, they can find out more information,” Long said. “I encourage everyone to give money toward this house. It takes both hands and funds to build these things, and it just means that we can build more and more homes if we get better at that, too.”
Lake City Bank is one of those teams, so they raised money on behalf of Habitat and sponsored the Women Build Tuesday.
For their crowd funding, Price explained, “So we created our personal team on the Crowd Funding website, and from there we each got a QR Code for our team that you could text or email out to your friends, to your co-workers, so I think some of the ladies emailed their teams that they work specifically with. Some emailed friends and family, or texted it out to them. From there, the donor can just click on the link, choose your name to give you credit for the donation that they made.”
She said it was pretty seamless and easy, and each person hit their individual goal to help reach the team goal. Logan said the goal for Lake City Bank was $2,400, or $200 per participant.
Habitat for Humanity of Kosciusko County is seeking applicants for its Homeownership Program. Anyone who wants to apply can visit kosciuskohabitat.org/apply and print an application. They can also pick up an application at the Habitat ReSale Outlet, 3970 Corridor Drive, Warsaw, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday through Saturday. A follow-up appointment to submit the completed application and review next steps must take place no later than Aug. 30.
A complete, detailed application guide is available for free on Habitat’s website at kosciuskohabitat.org/apply.
For more information about Habitat for Humanity of Kosciusko County, visit kosciuskohabitat.org or follow them on Facebook (@kosciuskohabitat).