​On Friday, May 17, we were thrilled to break ground on our Spring Grove Heritage House. This is already a special home for Habitat for Humanity La Crosse Area for several reasons. 

The Heritage Home is Habitat La Crosse’s 50th home. That means it will house one of 50 families that has been able to build strength, stability and self-reliance through homeownership. This house will become our first built in Spring Grove, MN. This is an opportunity to extend our service into rural communities, areas hugely affected by the affordable housing shortage but often overlooked in conversations surrounding the issue.
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It is not just the final product that will be full of firsts for Habitat for Humanity La Crosse Area. The planning of the Spring Grove Heritage House has been a whole new process. Habitat La Crosse started this process after a high school class in Spring Grove was asked what their community needs most and they responded with a need for affordable housing. This class then helped to design the architectural plans for the home.  Then architect Miranda Moen helped put the students’ ideas into a buildable blue print. 

Habitat La Crosse and Spring Grove are building on this theme of involving the entire community in the Heritage Home. The Spring Grove community has come together in exciting ways to build support for this project. Community members have raised funds and generated excitement. This was clear in the large attendance for the ground breaking ceremony, despite poor weather. We can’t wait to see what else this community will do to support this home.
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If you want to learn more about Habitat for Humanity La Crosse Area’s Spring Grove Heritage Home, or if you want to get involved, please visit our website: https://www.habitatlacrosse.org/spring-grove-heritage-house.html.

Last Saturday, April 27, Habitat for Humanity La Crosse Area hosted our annual Neighbors Day volunteer event. Partnering with Friends of the Marsh, Neighbors Day helps the elderly and disabled get their yards ready for spring and clean up our beautiful marsh.

This year, Habitat La Crosse had a record number of recipients. Over 190 elderly and disabled recipients signed up to have their yards worked on by volunteers. The day began with hundreds of volunteers, making up over 40 teams, coming through the Myrick Park center to check in, receive their assignments and have some breakfast provided by Moka and Kwik Trip. Habitat La Crosse was able to partner with Friends of the Marsh this year, so we shared a check in and eating space for all of these wonderful volunteers. After figuring out where they’d be helping out, grabbing some food and checking out all the tools they’d need, the volunteer teams headed off the help the elderly and disabled.

Mid-morning, the snow started to fall, but this didn’t slow down Habitat La Crosse’s volunteers. In fact, Habitat staff drove around to take photos of the volunteers in action but had trouble because many locations they went to had already been completed by these amazing volunteers.

Because of the weather, a few teams were unable to make it, which meant that some homeowners were not going to receive help. When Habitat staff announced this during a lunch provided by North Country Steak Buffet, many teams that had only signed up for a half day generously took on even more projects in the snow so our recipients would receive the help they expected.
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In the end, despite the weather, Habitat La Crosse helped more elderly and disabled homeowners in La Crosse than any other Neighbors Day before. We are so grateful to all the volunteers and sponsors who made this incredible volunteer event possible.