Churches seek help to build Habitat House
By Bonnie Edwards
Published in News on August 11, 2004 2:02 PM
Congregations of six churches are building a Habitat for Humanity house, and they hope to get six more churches involved.
The church members are putting more than their money into the project to help Habitat for Humanity of Goldsboro and Wayne County. They're going to build the house, starting in September.
One of the pastors, Habitat board member Glenn Phillips Jr., is helping get 12 churches involved in the project.
Six churches have signed onto the project so far: First Baptist Church, pastored by Phillips, as well as St. Mary's Catholic Church, St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, New Hope United Methodist, the Seymour Johnson Air Force Base Chapel and Adamsville Baptist Church.
News-Argus/Bonnie Edwards
First Baptist Church Pastor Glenn Phillips Jr. is shown with Habitat Director Beth Parrish as they announce the upcoming building project that will be undertaken by 12 churches.
The project, called Disciple Build, is being funded by a $10,000 grant that involves a local match of $40,000 from the churches. The total includes in-kind services provided by the volunteers.
The first six churches have committed $3,500 each and volunteers to help construct the house.
"We are still needing other churches to come forward with that commitment," said Phillips, who has people in his church who can do things like plumbing, electrical work, carpentry. Any work that is volunteered is better, because it involves people building relationships, he said.
It takes about six months to build a Habitat house, and the Disciple Build group is expecting the other six churches to join during that time.
"Churches are important to the process, because it's a church ministry," said Phillips of Habitat, which is an ecumenical, non-denominational organization.
He said his congregation had fun raising its $3,500. It held a cake auction. "The neat thing about it was some people bought a cake and turned around and donated it back the same night. It was auctioned a second time. Some cakes brought $250 and $300."
The Disciple Build idea came through an anonymous gift from the Raleigh Archdiocese of the Roman Catholic Church, said Habitat Director Beth Parrish.
Father Norris of St. Mary's Catholic Church in Goldsboro helped the organization get the grant. Another board member, Don Nobers, helped write the grant application.
Mrs. Parrish had just come on board in October and got a phone call from Rebecca Hix, associate director of church relations with Habitat International.
"She said, 'There's this grant opportunity available. Are you interested?' I said, 'Yes,' not knowing that if you build it they won't necessarily come.
"We're trying to get this off the ground."