On March 14th, our Habitat team publicly announced our 30-home building campaign, Open Doors. This ambitious 5-year, $4 million initiative will grow Habitat’s construction output by 50 percent, and empower us to serve more families with affordable homeownership well beyond Open Doors’ conclusion in 2026.
Having launched the campaign in December 2021 with the support of a mighty Open Doors committee, we have raised $3.2 million to date, putting us in a strong position to raise the remaining funds by end of 2024. Already Open Doors contributions have made a difference in our ability to build more homes. We have acquired enough properties to meet our 30-home goal, which in turn allowed us to re-open home applications early last year. Right now, we have 22 families working through our homeownership program… more than we’ve had in decades!
Through Open Doors, we’ve also been able to grow our construction staff and engage more volunteers, allowing us to be in more build sites at one time with more helping hands. Over 2023, Habitat volunteers logged more than 20,000 hours of time on our build sites, at ReStore and working behind the scenes. That’s a 65 percent increase year over year. And, as the campaign kicks into a higher gear for construction, we have 10 home projects on our calendar this year.
Over the next 8 months, our team will be working hard to cross the finish line and meet our fundraising goal. To read more about our effort and to get involved, please see our Open Doors page here.
