We have broken down the ministry of A Brush with Kindness into 3 area's - Restoration, ReStore and Referral. These 3 area's give us a broad array of services to provide our community. The restoration consists of homeowner occupied repairs (minor and major), accessibility adaptations, landscaping/cleanup and lots of painting.
We also work with our ReStore to assist homeowners with do it yourself projects. We provide extra discounts for homeowners that qualify for our program and give technical assistance and follow-up as needed. We try to be creative in having homeowners purchase what materials they can afford (either from the ReStore or another retail provider), train them to do what they can and then fill in labor needs with ABWK volunteers. Even though many of our ABWK families cannot help with purchasing materials or even helping with labor, those families who can partner with Habitat in this way help us serve more families. The ReStore also provides a low cost way for homeowners to accomplish do it yourself projects for ABWK families we cannot serve.
ABWK promotes the ReStore to all of our applicants and our ReStore promotes ABWK to their customers. This cross promotion effort helps to expand both programs while allowing the public to see how all our works aligns with our Habitat mission of creating and preserving homeownership - a win/win situation!
Referral is another area where we are working hard to develop. We obviously cannot serve everyone who needs assistance. However, we can continue to expand our service and influence through referring homeowners to partner organizations (Community Action etc.) and other valuable resources that support healthy homeownership. See preserveourhome.com for idea's.
