Built with girl power
After years of waiting and hard work, Kathy Carchia finally has a place to call home. Habitat For Humanity volunteers and a group of determined women in Coeur d’Alene set out to build her home from the grass sprouts to the rooftop nearly three years ago. Her house was dedicated last week.
The only time she wasn’t smiling or giggly at the dedication, she was wiping away tears as she took the keys to a two-bedroom home.
“It’s been a long three years,” she said. “And now we’re here. This is very exciting.”
Before setting out on building her home, Carchia and her daughter, Kandice Finley, lived in a one-bedroom apartment converted from an office above her work in Hayden. But Carchia soon left to care for her mother, then moved in with a friend in Rathdrum until the house was finished.
She put more than 380 sweat equity volunteer hours into other homes before walking into her own.
The house was the first sponsored house for the Habitat For Humanity of North Idaho, meaning that dollars put up through fund-raising rather than by the nonprofit homebuilding group financed it. It also was the first built by a group of women from Coeur d’Alene who got together, raised the money and rolled their sleeves to get the project done. They call themselves the “16-Penny Gals.”
Jann Severtson said her contribution was minor compared to others in the group. She started out by pounding nails into framing, then helped paint and put together cupboards later in the project.
She’d never taken direction from a woman and said the project elevated her self-esteem and gave her a sense of accomplishment.
“The women wanted to know if they really could do something like a man could,” she said.
For the 16-Penny Gals, the job was as tough as the nails for which they were named.
Several setbacks along the way tacked months onto the project. The original site supervisor, Lin Rimple, left midway for personal reasons. Carchia left for a time to care for her mother, who eventually died of cancer two years to the day of the house dedication last Tuesday. Carchia also injured her shoulder and neck from lifting a person at an elder care facility. In addition, volunteers came and went throughout the project.
The bulk of the work was raising half of the $37,000 needed to sponsor the house and begin construction. More than 20 Gals started construction, but numbers dropped as private lives took over for many volunteers. By the end, about five of the women were still hard at work on the project. Overall, about 170 volunteers worked on the project.
Kara Halvorson, site supervisor, started as a 16-Penny Gal and took over the project in November.
“I said, ‘I’ll keep this thing together’, and it ended up being my baby,” she said.
She had help from other Habitat volunteers and said she enjoyed the adventure of learning to build the house as they moved ahead. She helped with framing, wood cuts for windows, sheeting, siding, sheet rock and more.
“It’s not anti-men, it’s about empowering women,” Halvorson said.
So when the Gals needed extra help, men with more construction experience stepped in to lend a hand.
Michael Nistor, a Romanian immigrant, said he’s put in 3,000 hours into Habitat homes over the last three years. He worked on sheet rock in Carchia’s house for three weeks, stopping by every day after his job as a construction worker.
“We help each other out and that’s what it’s all about,” he said.
One day, the Gals stopped by to say thank you for his hard work. He was all white from mudding material but soon was covered with red kisses on his face.
He said he hopes to have a house of his own some day, but for now he’s happy with helping out.
Now, with keys in hand, Carchia is moving in and enjoying the best part – the purple bathtub and sink. She hopes her son, Damyon Parkins, 19, will move in later this year from Clarkston.
The 989-square-foot home was built with double-wall construction and high efficiency windows. Halvorson said heating bills in similar houses in Butte, Mont., are about $100 to $200 a year. The home is the last of three on a Habitat subdivision on the corner of 11th Street and Best Avenue in Coeur d’Alene.
Jim Erlanger, president of Habitat For Humanity of North Idaho, said he’s holding the project out as a “shining example” in hopes that more groups will step forward to help sponsor future homes.
Two homebuilding projects are under way in Rathdrum, and 12 houses are planned over the next three years in Post Falls. Habitat volunteers completed four houses in Kootenai County over the last 18 months and 17 since the North Idaho affiliate started in 1979.