Habitat for Humanity holds groundbreaking for Elkhart County development

ELKHART COUNTY, Ind. -- Habitat for Humanity of Elkhart County held a groundbreaking ceremony for the first four homes in its new 15-lot development at 3115Homer Ave. on Wednesday.

This week’s event marks the beginning of construction for the first four Habitat families, Holley Dercach, Quinton and Jessica Thompson, Kristin Alwell, and Jasmine Bush.

Each family has invested sweat-equity hours and completed Habitat’s homeownership and financial literacy programs, preparing them for this next step toward stability and homeownership.

The new project comes from a partnership with Lippert. Lippert will serve as the Panel Build sponsor for each of these homes.

Panel Build events are where wall panels for the homes are constructed.

Panel Builds for these homes are scheduled for late September and October at Lippert plants across the area, engaging hundreds of team members in the build process.

Greg Conrad, President and Executive Director at Habitat for Humanity of Elkhart County, said "Our team and our board, you know, we say this is our second happiest day of the year, because the happiest day is when we're when we finish with these and we turn the keys over to the family, and we get to see that, that excitement of owning their own home, for many of them, they've never owned a home, and they've probably grown up in a family that never owned a home, and so that joy of achieving such a monumental goal is so awesome, and for us, particularly because we know how hard they've worked and what they've overcome to get to this point. So today marks that transition from preparing to build a house to actually, today they start building it. And so over the next weeks, the foundations will be going in, and their walls are going to be going up, and early next year, we hope to be moving them into their homes."