Faith House with Habitat for Humanity
by Marc Rudow, Wednesday Core Habitat Volunteer
Since 2010, CBI has been part of a project to build a Habitat home for a local family. Not
too many years later, the home became LEED certified. Habitat, as you probably know,
uses volunteer labor and provides zero interest loans to homeowners to make home
ownership affordable. I began my work as an attorney for Habitat doing title work and
closings for close to 20 years. Upon retirement I decided to continue helping the
organization – and my many friends/colleagues there – as a regular Wednesday
CORE volunteer. As such, I typically put in around 250 hours a year doing a variety of
construction tasks at the jobsite. When CBI was approached to participate as a house
of worship, Alan Escovitz stepped up and organized our faith community to volunteer to
be a part of this multi-faith project – which made me very proud of our shul. More
recently, Robert Kline has taken on Alan’s role.
If you want to participate, here is what to expect. CBI volunteers arrive at the site for
the morning safety talk around 8:30 and then are given tasks commensurate with their
skill levels/abilities to work on for the day. Supervisors are helpful, provide clear and
detailed training, and make sure that everyone stays safe for the work session. Our
participation has been a great opportunity for me to meet many wonderful CBI members
including Jeremy Samsky, Brian Lander, Tony Hauser, Eva Blinder, Josh Tager, Richard
Nielson, Lou Lieb, Brad Fisher, Adrian Sandler, Michelle McCalla, Jenny Stern,
Karin Fraade, Dan Galewsky, Eric & Ellen Bush and others, some of
whom I might not have met through irregular attendance at services. (Apologies to
anyone I left out.)
These congregants have given their time and energy to help folks
become homeowners. When you are on site, you will also meet other interesting
volunteers from varied backgrounds giving of their time, many of whom are very skilled
in construction work. Habitat volunteer work is a way to learn new skills and to
contribute to your community along with other houses of faith.
Once you learn to build, you see the world in a different way! Join us next year when
the time comes around!