Thanks to Habitat, family gets ready to participate in American dream

Thu, 06/07/2007 - 4:54pm
By: The Citizen

Thanks to Habitat, family gets ready to participate in American dream

Regina and Morris Hunter, recently approved applicants to receive a Habitat home in Coweta County, saw their future Habitat home this week. The Hunters will move into the home after accruing their required 400 hours of sweat equity.

The home is a refurbished Habitat home located at 7 Fisher St. It will be adapted with a wheel chair ramp to accommodate the needs of Regina's 80-year-old mother who is legally blind and in a wheel chair.

The Hunters are very excited about the home for many reasons. One of which is the fenced-in back yard which will allow their 10-year-old, soon to be adopted son, Markell, play in the yard without fear of him wondering off. Markell is severely autistic.

Each Habitat homeowner is required to pay $800 for their first year's homeowner's insurance and property taxes prior to the closing of their home. Morris is employed at White Oak Elementary and Regina is the room-mom for her son's special needs class at White Oak. Regina was moved to tears when she went to White Oak for a meeting and was presented with over $1,000 collected over two days by the teachers and staff at White Oak to cover the $800 as well as provide a “little something extra” for decorating their new home.

The Hunters hope to move into their home before the school year starts, so have already worked up a schedule to earn their sweat equity hours at the current Habitat build sites, in the Habitat ReStore and in the administrative offices. Regina has been very helpful in helping Habitat update its volunteer database by making calls from her home. Also, 25 percent of their sweat equity hours may be “donated” by family and friends. White Oak has said they will be calling Habitat to schedule teachers and staff to work for the Hunters.

Cheryl Sanborn, White Oak principal and Charlene Coldwell, Markell's teacher, accompanied the Hunters when they saw the inside of their future home for the first time.

Regina has also agreed to serve on Newnan-Coweta Habitat's Church Relations Committee.

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