In the week leading up to Mother’s Day, more than 17,000 women across the country are celebrating this year’s holiday in a less-than-traditional way: by picking up hammers, laying drywall and framing a house to make it a home for a family in need of decent, affordable shelter.
It’s all part of Habitat for Humanity’s ninth annual National Women Build Week, taking place April 30-May 8, 2016. More than 300 Habitat offices are hosting National Women Build Week activities for this year’s event, including new home construction, neighborhood revitalization projects and building to green standards. The week will launch with 10 “Girls Night Out” house-framing events in Lowe’s parking lots across the United States.
At each build site, women learn new construction skills from Lowe’s Heroes volunteers as well as through How-To clinics. While some volunteers are building novices learning various aspects of the new construction and renovation jobs for the first time, many others are highly skilled building professionals.
The stage of the construction process differs across all events and in many cases is highly dependent on the climate. For example, many of the builds held in the northern part of the country may be in the early stages of construction while some southern sites started work earlier in the year.
Whether the National Women Build Week volunteers are kicking off the project or completing it, their time and effort on the build will have a significant impact on helping families in their local community build strength, stability and self-reliance through shelter. As a result of all events held throughout the week nationwide, volunteers will help build or repair 650 homes alongside future Habitat homeowners.
More information about National Women Build Week is available at www.habitat.org.
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