This year seven more Twin Cities families bought safe, affordable Habitat homes thanks to the Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity program. Thrivent Financial for Lutherans has been partnering with Twin Cities Habitat for Humanity (TCHFH) since 1991 and has helped build 82 homes in that time. The three most recent homes were dedicated in a ceremony in North Minneapolis on Thursday, October 27.
?Thrivent is the #1 supporter in the world for Habitat in terms of sponsoring homes,? says Susan Haigh, CEO and President of TCHFH. ?It's wonderful that they do so much right here in the Twin Cities in terms of creating safe, affordable homes for families.?
"We help our members be wise with their money so they can be generous with their lives," says Chris Larson, Managing Partner of Central Minnesota for Thrivent Financial. "Our affiliations with Habitat is one of our most notable and most succesful partnerships that we have. Look at all the lives that are changed by this work."
Thrivent Financial expanded its long-standing partnership with Habitat in 2005 by creating the Thrivent Builds program. This dramatically increased Thrivent?s work with Habitat resulting in nearly 2,500 homes being built worldwide since then. This year alone, Thrivent Builds committed $ 10.4M to fund 164 Habitat homes around the country ? including $ 719K for the seven homes built with TCHFH.
Nearly 50 Twin Cities congregations took part in the Thrivent Build program by donating funds and supplying volunteers to work on homes this year. Nationwide Thrivent estimates 450,000 volunteers have contributed nearly 3 million volunteer hours since 2005.
?It?s really a rewarding thing because when people are volunteering on site they?re really at their finest,? says Bill Bergquist, a Chapter Specialist for Thrivent Builds. Bill has been a part of Habitat?s work for more than 20 years. ?It?s great because the homebuyers are right there working alongside the volunteers.?
Habitat?s model requires homebuyers to do hundreds of hours of ?sweat equity? before purchasing their home. They also agree to pay Habitat?s unique 0% interest mortgage. All Habitat homebuyers go through extensive homeownership training courses before closing on their home, which has helped keep TCHFH?s foreclosure rate below 1%.
For more information on Thrivent Builds visit http://www.ThriventBuilds.com. For more information on TCHFH visit http://www.tchabitat.org.
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