The festival will present:
- music
- BBQ competition
- spoken word
- storytelling
- puppet shows
- art
- crafts
- dog parade
- food

Visit thurmanloopfest.com for more information. We’ll see you there!

In celebration and observance of the holiday, all build sites will be closed on Saturday, May 26th and Monday, May 28th. The HFHSL office and the ReStore will be closed on Monday, May 28th, and there will be no Monday Crew.

Everything will reopen on Tuesday, May 29th.

Future site of a Habitat home on the corner of Bartmer and Kingsland.

We’re starting to build in a new neighborhood! Celebrate our kick off in University City with a First Wall event happening on June 5th at 11am. As our first build in this neighborhood, Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis is constructing houses on five empty lots on the 6600 blocks of Bartmer and Crest Avenues between Kingsland and 66th Street. The houses will be built this summer and finished early this fall. The First Wall ceremony will take place at the corner of Kingsland and Bartmer and will include words from prominent members of the community.

What: University City First Wall Event
When: June 5th at 11am
Where: corner of Kingsland and Bartmer

Note: Parking is residential-only and therefore very limited; carpooling is encouraged.

Light snacks and beverages provided by 

Completed homes in the JeffVanderLou neighborhood.

ATLANTA (May 18, 2012) — Habitat for Humanity is the sixth-largest homebuilder in the U.S. based on house closings in 2011, according to the annual survey completed by BUILDER magazine. Habitat built or rehabilitated 4,970 homes across the United States and is the only non-publicly traded company in the top 10 ranking.

“I’m very proud of the work of our more than 1,500 affiliates in the U.S.,” said Jonathan Reckford, Habitat for Humanity International CEO. “The fact that they are continuing to build and rehab homes in these difficult economic times is a testament to their resourcefulness and their commitment to families, affordable housing, and the communities they serve. We are grateful to our donors and volunteers, whose generosity makes this work possible.”

BUILDER, a publication for the residential construction industry, annually compiles data from U.S. builders and ranks them by the number of closings. Habitat placed sixth on the list last year and first made the top 10 in 2010 as the eighth-largest builder.

Habitat made an additional 2,795 house repairs to existing homes, which were not accounted for in the survey. Habitat also provides a wide range of services for its homebuyers, including financial education workshops.

The roofs are on the homes at our Carondelet build site.

What do Anheuser-Busch, Enterprise Bank and Trust, and ARCO all have in common? All of these companies – and more – are participating in tomorrow’s CEO Build, taking place at our Carondelet build site.

What is a CEO Build, you ask? It’s an exciting new opportunity developed with C-level executives in mind. This event will allow St. Louis CEOs to work alongside fellow peers and have an opportunity to form powerful business partnerships, all while building homes and changing lives for low-income families.

Our CEO Build in Carondelet is our first foray into this new event, and we’re eager to see executives hanging drywall and building relationships with one another. The day will start with a continental breakfast followed by a morning of working on the build site. After a lunch catered by Andre’s Banquet Facilities and a couple more hours hammering and nailing, the executives will conclude the day with a happy hour at Iron Barley.

This is just the first of what we hope to be many opportunities for C-level executives to come alongside the Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis vision – a world in which everyone has a decent place to live.

Are you a C-level executive and want to get in on the fun? We have another CEO Build coming up on June 29th at our University City build site. Get more information or RSVP today by contacting Katie Harder, Development Manager, at katie@habitatstl.org or (314) 371-0400.

At 4pm this afternoon, Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis will dedicate 12 homes in Old North St. Louis. Construction staff and volunteers started building on the site in 2011 and put the finishing touches on the homes just a few weeks ago. Today we celebrate some of our fellow St. Louisans purchasing and moving into their very own homes. Join us at 4pm at 1400 North Market (the southwest corner of North Market and North 14th Street) for a dedication celebration at which past and present homebuyers will speak about what owning a home – and realizing a dream – means to them. The ceremony will be followed by ice cream from Crown Candy and two of the new homes will be available for tour. See you there!

Refugees Find Home in Carondelet
by Scott Bandle

With a “one-two-three,” future homeowners, volunteers and St. Louis officials raised a wall Thursday on a new house under construction in the 1000 block of Bates Street.

The ceremony marked the start of a new Habitat for Humanity St. Louis project in the Carondelet neighborhood. Five families will move into five new houses. This week, more than 600 volunteers will put on a “blitz” and finish most of the construction.

One of the future homeowners was Mwibi Bizimana, 32, who came to the United States in 2006 from the Congo. On Thursday, he was wearing a long-sleeved shirt and a tie, but was quite willing to work up a sweat raising the wall.

“This is very exciting,” he said. “We can’t wait to move in. We know which bedrooms our children will sleep.”

Bizimana, his wife and four children are refugees from political violence in the Congo. After spending time in a refugee camp, having a new house was just a dream for the family.

“People are dying because of the civil war,” he said. “It is wonderful to be here now. This will be our first home.”

On May 10, a crane will set the rooftops on the houses. Each two-story house will have three bedrooms on the second floor with an optional bedroom in the basement. The houses will have brick facades, matching other houses on Bates Street. Each will have an appraisal value of $160,000.

When Aline Hareimana, 39, showed her four children the plans for their new house, they were stunned.

“They wouldn’t believe me,” she said. “They said, ‘No, you’re lying.’ It’s very exciting for us.”

Her family also fled violence in the Congo. She, her husband, Janvier, and their children came to the United States in September 2007.

This is the first time Habitat for Humanity St. Louis has built houses for international home buyers. Out of the five houses, three will go to families from the Congo. Habitat for Humanity, a not-for-profit group that provides affordable housing in the St. Louis area, has built more that 313 homes in this area.

This is its first project in South St. Louis. The project is small when compared to some of the construction it has done in North St. Louis.

“On the north side, we had projects the size of entire city blocks,” Chief Executive Officer Kimberly McKinney said. “Now, we’re more scattered, finishing off gaps in the neighborhoods. Much of our work will be a lot smaller.”

The project has been in planning for a year. The site had two six-family apartments that were demolished in 2000 by the Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District. It purchased the land as part of an easement for a sewer project. The land was given to the city for future development.

After a couple of projects fell through because of the economy, the Carondelet Housing Corporation approached Habitat for Humanity in 2009 to discuss building homes. The not-for-profit group agreed to take it on.

Neighborhood residents wanted the new Habitat houses to match the architecture of their houses, Director of Construction Kyle Hunsberger said.

“They have brick facades like the other houses,” he said. “The first and last houses will have flat roofs just like other homes. The middle three will have peaked roofs. They’ll fit in well with the neighborhood.”

The new houses also will be built to LEED Platinum standards for environmentally-friendly construction.

The best part, though, is working with the new homeowners, Hunsberger said. The homeowners have to work with the construction crews and volunteers to build the houses.

“Seeing their faces when it’s all finished is great,” he said. “That never grows old.”

Last Thursday, April 26, Habitat for Humanity Saint Louis raised the first wall of our new Carondelet homes. From Aldermen to volunteers, political representatives to homebuyers, nearly 100 people gathered to celebrate the event and helped set the first wall in place. The ceremony marks the official start to our new build in the Historic Carondelet Neighborhood. HFHSL is building five homes located near the intersection of Bates and Grand. All five homes already have homebuyers, most of who were at the ceremony. Various media outlets were in attendance to cover the event. Check out KSDK’s video below and stay tuned for posting of an article from the Suburban Journal.

A big THANK YOU to everyone who participated in Team Habitat! We could not do this without supporters like you!