BUILDING A DREAM

By WILLIAM K. ALCORN

alcorn@vindy.com

YOUNGSTOWN

Vera Ellis pounded in the first nail in her Habitat for Humanity-built home Saturday and is looking forward to moving in this August with great excitement.

An estimated 80 volunteers from the community and area colleges and churches helped Habitat for Humanity of Mahoning County raise the walls of Ellis’ home early Saturday, reminiscent of an old-fashioned barn-raising.

The walls, built by Choffin Career and Technical School students, went up quickly, and by mid-afternoon, workers were preparing to put up roof trusses.

“I was amazed at how quickly the walls went up. And all these volunteers — they came out to help, and they don’t even know me. I introduced myself and thanked everyone of them personally,” said Ellis, mother of three teenagers.

Ellis’ children are Markis, 17, and Verinque, 14, students at East High School, and Mark, 13, in the Rayen Early College Program at Choffin Career and Technical Center.

They are excited too, particularly Verinque, who will get a room of her own in the three-bedroom home on Maranatha Drive, their mother said.

The one-story house has 1,150 square feet with a full basement and sits on a nice-sized lot with a small grove of trees in the back.

Ellis will be on-site weekly, working and learning skills that will be helpful once she becomes a homeowner as part of 250 hours of required “sweat equity.” Once the house is finished, she will buy it from Habitat for no profit with a zero-percent-interest loan, said Monica Craven, Habitat executive director.

Ellis already has logged 50 hours of her “sweat equity” by volunteering at Habitat for Humanity of Mahoning County’s nonprofit ReStore facility at 480 Youngstown Poland Road in Struthers. The outlet accepts donated home-improvement goods for resale.

The volunteers Saturday included people from the community and churches and Youngstown State University and Westminster College students working with several Habitat carpenters.

They all were under the leadership of Sonny Bruno, construction manager, a full-time Habitat employee who for many years owned and operated Bruno Builders in Boardman.

Bruno said he is grateful for Habitat’s national sponsors but particularly thanked local companies that despite a bad economy, continue to be very generous to Habitat for Humanity in providing materials.

He also thanked the volunteers, who he said do not need construction skills.

“We teach them what they need to know,” he said.

Among the volunteers Saturday were a dozen members of the Habitat for Humanity Chapter at Westminster College in New Wilmington, Pa., who work on Habitat projects most weekends.

Chapter members also spent their spring break not on the beach but in Birmingham, Ala., working on houses in a Habitat Neighborhood, said Nicole Zappa, a junior from Monroeville, Pa.

Erica Szewczyk and Caitlin Smith, sophomores of Bethel Park, Pa., said they joined Habitat to help people and also to learn. Szewczyk said the experience has inspired her to want to build her own home someday.

For Megan Hoffman, a sophomore of South Park, Pa., volunteering for Habitat for Humanity is a natural extension of the project she did as a member of The St. Joan of Arc Church Youth Group in her hometown. Youth Group members join other teenagers at an Appalachian Work Camp near Booneville, Ky., where they spend a week building homes, additions and porches, she said.

Ellis, who was born and reared in Toledo, has lived in Youngstown for 17 years. She works for Knight FM, a facilities management firm.

She said she wants to start a program for Habitat she calls Getting Connected and Staying Connected as a way of giving back.

“Habitat and these volunteers have allowed me to turn a dream of owning my own home into a reality,” Ellis said, adding, “I’m very grateful and totally ecstatic.”