We have now officially broken ground on the main lot of the Micah’s Creek neighborhood. It’s taken a lot of work, flexibility, patience, and hope to get here, and we thank all our partners and supporters for helping to make it happen.

Micah’s Creek will incorporate both tiny homes and insulating concrete form (ICF) construction, which we pioneered in Athens-Clarke with our Kinda Tiny Homes and Build with Strength projects. And for the first time, we’ll be using off-site construction in partnership with Impact Housing in Baxley, GA.

These are framed houses which are constructed almost to completion at indoor facilities that are safer and more efficient, and allow homes to be built to very tight specifications more quickly than building outdoors. They’re then brought in and lowered onto our foundations by crane. (We’re hearing that these may be the first crane-dropped homes in the county, but we haven’t confirmed that yet.) We’re looking to the high efficiency of this process to allow us to continue building at neighborhood scale.

Publix is a long-time supporter of Habitat for Humanity, and over the past decade Publix Super Markets Charities has contributed $125,000 to Habitat projects in the Athens, GA, service area. Their most recent donation of $40,000 covered flooring, cabinets, countertops, doors, and HVAC for a project in Clarke County.

We also need to thank our donors, because in case you weren’t aware, local support is a key component of the grant process. Matching grants require that we have funds to invest before the grantor chips in, and reimbursable grants require that we foot the entire project bill up front and complete the work to spec before the grantor follows up. These are prudent requirements, ensuring that grant funding is spent as promised and that awards are going to organizations with community support.

So here’s a hearty “Thank you!” to Publix and to our other contributors who’ve helped make this grant and all our other successful grant applications possible.

Volunteers are the heartbeat of Habitat. They help us deliver housing at below market cost, bring energy and fellowship to the work site, and keep us connected to so many organizations and communities within our service area.

Volunteers from Atlanta Gas Light have been a regular sight on the site this year, and they’ve been a wonderful help and a joy to work with. And AGL does so much more to assist folks in need in our state, like helping to fund utility payment assistance programs and child healthcare and education in Georgia, and being there to do the hard work when disasters strike. They don’t crow much about it, but we sure are glad they’re doing it!

Oh, and here’s a little local trivia for ya! The building currently occupied by the Daily Groceries Co-op at 1190 Prince Avenue in Athens was originally an appliance showroom for Atlanta Gas Light’s retail enterprise GNG. The round building with the wavy roof was designed to resemble a stove eye with its ring of gas flames. There are other old showrooms around the state, some with a curvy roof and others with jagged/angled edges, so keep your eyes peeled when you’re traveling around the state.

Y‘all, this summer was hot! So hot, in fact, that we had to close our stores and pull crews off construction sites when the heat and humidity made work conditions unsafe. And we expect future summers to be even hotter.

As a non-profit, we’re obliged to ensure that the bulk of our funding goes to our mission to provide housing. But we’ve embarked on a pilot program — with a pair of organizations who are bringing solar power to Habitat homes across the country, GiveSolar and Habitat for Humanity of Virginia — that we hope will end up powering Habitat ReStores across the country.

It began with a donation of panels intended for industrial rather than residential use. When GiveSolar contacted the Southern Sustainability Institute looking for a use case, they suggested partnering with us, and of course we said yes! These industrial panels will be installed on the roof of each of our thrift stores, and when combined with upgraded HVAC systems, will improve our stores while reducing operating costs. And if it works here, we’re hoping it will work nationwide!

You might not know that the idea for Habitat for Humanity was sparked right here in Athens, GA, in the 1930s when an agriculture student named Clarence Jordan was inspired to change his major and embark on an effort to correct the economic inequalities he saw around him. Jordan went on to found the integrated Koinonia Farms in Sumter County, which began building houses as Koinonia Partners in the 1960s, with payments supporting a “fund for humanity” that provided up-front funding for more houses.

That effort morphed into Habitat for Humanity as we know it in 1976. The Athens area affiliate was founded in 1988, and we’re still going strong! The photo at left was taken in 1989 at the first “mortgage burn” for a home built by Koinonia Partners, celebrating full ownership of the house. Since then, we’ve had several “mortgage rips” of our own, and we’re looking forward to many more over the coming years!