On Thursday, Oct. 25, Habitat for Humanity La Crosse Area launched its All Hands In Capital Campaign. To do so, we hosted community members at Home Cookin’ for Habitat. The event was held at Colgan Air Services Hangar #4, and many local businesses sponsored the event and helped make it possible.

Pearl Street Brewery donated beer and their time to serve beverages to Habitat La Crosse’s guests. Cabin Coffee donated coffee, tea and lemonade. Subway, Pogy’s Catering, The DAMN TASTY, Fayze’s, Pappi’s Taqueria and Rudy’s all donated appetizers or desserts for guests to enjoy throughout the evening. It is safe to say the food was a big hit.
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Andy Hughes gave his time and talents to entertain guests as they arrived, playing a variety of songs for the first portion of the evening. ​

Throughout the evening, we had a ReStore lounge set up and available for people to sit, talk and see the kind of items we have available at the Habitat La Crosse ReStore. We even had an item purchased on the night! 
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During the program, guests were able to recognize June Kjome, one of Habitat La Crosse’s co-founders, who was in the audience. We are so grateful for the foundation she laid for the work Habitat is now doing and expanding for area families.

We could not have held this event, and could not be launching the All Hands In Capital Campaign, without the help of so many volunteers and donors throughout the process and beyond. Thank you to our steadfast supporters!

It was great to see so many people from the community join us in launching our campaign. Your continued support will help us reach more area families! To learn more, visit the Capital Campaign page today.  

Our Habitat for Humanity ReStore La Crosse Facebook contest this month was inspired by Halloween. We encouraged people to tag people in their lives who are excellent at designing and choosing Halloween costumes. There was no shortage of nominations for Halloween enthusiasts and creative costumers.

At the end of the contest, we drew for a winner. Our winner was Jackie Mahlum-Paul. When she came into the ReStore to collect her prize of Halloween decorations and a gift certificate, we asked her a little bit about herself.

Jackie enjoys making costumes for herself, her husband and her grandchildren. Her workplace holds a big costume contest every year, and she likes to create good entries for that. Some of her favorite costumes she’s designed for herself in the past are a Tiny Tim costume and the One Eyed One Horned Flying Purple People Eater. This year, she plans to go as a Bloody Mary.
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Congratulations, Jackie! We encourage everyone to keep an eye on our ReStore Facebook for upcoming opportunities for contests. 

​Monday, October 1 was World Habitat Day. Each year, the first Monday of October marks a re-dedication of Habitat for Humanity affiliates and partners around of the world to recognizing the basic right of everyone to adequate shelter. Here at Habitat La Crosse, we know that an important step to building a world in which everyone has a decent place to live is educating our community’s young people on housing issues. 

Because of this, we reached out to schools and one of our staff members was able to talk with two groups at the Coulee Montessori Adolescent Program the first week of October. The students and their teacher were incredibly welcoming and engaged. They learned about the various aspects of what our affiliate does—from building homes to reclaiming materials to revitalizing neighborhoods—and saw photos of some of our homeowners, volunteers and homes. One student even asked how he could help us in building homes, communities and hope himself.
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After the informative portion ended, the students had a fun and educational activity. To demonstrate how difficult it can be to find and build shelter, the students were put into small groups and given a few materials that happened to be readily available in their classroom. With newspaper, magazines and tape, their task was to build a structure in which at least one person could fit. 

​There was a great amount of creativity from these young people. Many had a similar basic idea, but where they went from there was varied and interesting to see. Some of the results were very successful and stable, and each group ended up with some sort of creative design

More importantly, they were all enthusiastic about how difficult it was and realized how hard it would be for someone to try and find shelter all on their own. It is great to see an understanding of the crucial need for available housing sparked in young people. 

September was Do-It-Yourself (DIY) month in the Habitat for Humanity-La Crosse Area ReStore. To celebrate, we held a Facebook contest. People were invited to comment on our post naming and tagging their favorite DIYer.

As with our last few Facebook drawings, there was a great level of participation. There were tons of names in our drawing jar. The lucky winner was Tammy Brockman.

Tammy uses her DIY skills far and wide in her life. She loves making her own decorations for varying seasons and occasions. She enjoys changing her house around and turning old into new.

Tammy explained that her kids and grandkids never have had to buy a costume because she designs them all on her own. She is currently crafting a rainbow costume for a grandchild.

Tammy also designs and makes wedding decorations, sticking with her hobby of making old new again.
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Congratulations to Tammy, and thanks to everyone who nominated a DIYer in your life! 

​We’re happy to announce a new member to our Habitat for Humanity La Crosse Area team. Jake Zabinski is our new Community Outreach Coordinator.

Jake has lived in Wisconsin his whole life. He is originally from Camp Douglas but has lived in La Crosse for about three years now.

Jake comes to Habitat La Crosse after a year and a half as Cabin Coffee’s Marketing and Sales Manager. Before that, he worked in a distribution center and ran a small business with his father. 



Jake loves running, swimming, the television show Mad Men, the color mint green, the violin and the book “Out of the Silent Planet.” We're happy to have Jake as part of the Habitat family! ​
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