Oh Happy Day: Youth United Home Dedicated!

Why are these fine people smiling? Because Sunday, December 16 was a joyful day for Robdu (Lome) Adam and her family. The Youth United home dedication was attended by so many people in the community who have helped the family since they came to the United States in 1999 including members of her church, Lower Deer Creek Mennonite in Kalona, her former teachers, coaches and classmates, members of the University of Iowa Habitat Chapter, Ann De Waters from Habitat International, members of the university community, corporate sponsors and friends.

Please click here to see more photos of this happy occasion.

Many thanks to all in the community who have helped the Adam family and who have supported Habitat to make "Home for the Holidays" a dream come true.

1440 Interact Students help finish the build on December 8

Members of the 1440 Interact Club worked on Saturday, December 8 to help finish the Youth United home which will be dedicated on Sunday, December 16 a 2 p.m. To see more pics, click here to go to the online account.

3rd Annual Spaghetti Dinner a UI Habitat Chapter Success

The UI Chapter held their 2nd Annual All You Can Eat Spaghetti Dinner to raise funds for the next Youth United Build. Despite the freezing rain, the turnout was good and we were happy to be joined by residents of the homeless shelter who came with tickets purchased by others. For more photos, click here.

Save the Date: Dedication Set for Dec 16

Save the date!

The youth United home will be dedicated on December 16, 2007 at 2 p.m. Watch for further details.

Youth United, Katherine Valde in the news

The Cedar Rapids Gazette published an article on the front page of the Community News section on Nov 4. The article highlighted Katherine Valde's achievements, focusing on her work with Habitat for Humanity.

Click here to download a copy of the entire article.

Youth United Awarded a $10,000 Matching Grant from State Farm Insurance

Friday October 7 was not a typical day on the job site. Representatives from State Farm Insurance presented a check in the amount of $10,000 to our Youth United program to help construct the home on St. Anne's. Chad Olson (3rd from left in the front row) represented Youth United. Local and regional representatives from State Farm joined in the celebration.

Participants also included (left to right, back row) Chris Swanson (IVHFH Americorps staff), Dana Englebert (Iowa City Chamber of Commerce), Bob Elliott (City Council member), Mark Patton (IVHFH Executive Director) and the senior State Farm regional director.

Looking on in the background is another group of young people who have been key to this build. They are students at Kirkwood Community College in Barry Kucera's Construction Technology program and led the framing activities.

More photos? Click here for our online photo gallery.

Week 2: walls going up

With the good weather we've been having this fall, progress on the home is moving rapidly along. Some of the walls are up. Students from Barry Kucera's construction technology class at Kirkwood are working under his supervision, accounting for much of the progress. Click to see more pictures in the gallery online.

Week 1: Foundation and flooring

And they're off! Professionals excavated and poured the retaining walls approximately 2 weeks ago. Last weekend was the first weekend of actual on site building by volunteers. Employees from IDNA participated in our TEAM program, led by Christopher Swanson, a Habitat employee. TEAM stands for "Together Everyone Achieves More".

As you can see from the above photo, it didn't take long for the hole in the ground to begin taking shape as a new Habitat home. Check our online photo gallery for additional photos.

Press Citizen article about the Youth United Training conference

There's an article in the print edition of the Iowa City Press Citizen today about Katherine Valde from Interact participating in the summer Youth Untied Training program. We submitted this to My P-C, the online edition, and were pleased to see that the newspaper is sharing the news with the entire community.

To read the online article, click here.

Welcome to Habitat's Youth United 2007 Build Site

Youth United is a new program in Iowa Valley Habitat for Humanity. There are thousands of local Habitat affiliates in the U.S. but only 90 Youth United programs as of summer 2007. Youth United brings young people in our area ages 5 - 25 together to plan, fundraise and build a Habitat home.

There are 4 foundation principles for Youth United:

• serving Habitat's mission
• providing meaningful and exemplary leadership opportunities for young people
• involving the children of Habitat homeowners
• expanding diversity among participants

The founding participants in our Youth United program include the University of Iowa Habitat Chapter, our local Rotaract, and members of 1440/Interact. Our membership is growing as we will have other local youth groups join this exciting effort.

We are proud and excited to build a home for Robdu Lome Adam and her family. Robdu and her sister Mako graduated from West High in 2004 and were cross county stars, a role that their cousin Obse is continuing at West. The family has a remarkable story and many supporters in our community.

Please b0okmark this website and stay tuned for new developments in our project and check out the links on the right.