Remarks by David Ferguson, President of HfHYC Board of Directors at Tracy Family Home Dedication
February 18, 2006

Thank you all for joining the Tracy family today for this joyous occasion.

As you are aware, it takes many hands to build a house, and it takes love to make that house a home. Having worked with the Tracy ’s and observed them as a family, I am sure they will have no problem quickly making this house into their HOME.

To get a sense of how many hands it takes to build a house, you will see on the back of your program a list of over 180 volunteers who worked directly on this house. That is not counting the skilled contractors who also worked on the house. In addition, there are dozens of dedicated Habitat Volunteers and board members who have been essential to the success of this project and I want to thank each and every one of them for their hard work and devotion to the mission of Habitat. Also, the support HfHYC receives from our Covenant Churches, be it prayer, people or monetary contributions is invaluable – in fact, Covenant Church support has been called the Foundation for all that Habitat achieves.

HfHYC is in its 20th year of operations, and this home was our second project started in 2005. The first 2005 project, built in Limerick , was dedicated in November. This home is our 19th completed project.

HfHYC’s Board of Directors has already approved our 2006 projects. We are concentrating our efforts on two projects in Shapleigh, with the possibility of a third home in Parsonsfield. We are conducting a blitz build the week of June 5th – that will be a home built in a week (just like on TV) and a second, more conventional project like this one. The families have already been selected for the two Shapleigh projects and both families have gotten a chance to work on this home and start completing their sweat equity hours. If you want more details of either build, please visit our web site www.habitatyorkcounty.org. We work hard to keep the web site updated so it can be a valuable source of information regarding HfHYC.

HfHYC has recently restructured its Board format with the intention of increasing the responsibility and activity of our six core committees. Each committee will meet at least once a month during the first 45 minutes of the Board Meetings. All committees welcome interested volunteers, and I encourage you to visit the web site for the complete committee descriptions and a listing of meeting dates and times.

Habitat works, but only if we all lend a hand. HfHYC is positioned to grow from an organization that builds one home a year to an organization that builds two or more homes a year. That growth will only happen if the people here today, and others who believe in the power of giving a family a hand up not a hand out, give of their time, talents and resources so that we can continue to grow Habitat in York County.