It’ll be a home – a true home
Published 12:00 am Wednesday, April 9, 2014
The weather outside Saturday might have been cold and chilly, but it was hardly noticed by Habitat for Humanity volunteers because of all the good feelings of warmth and good willing coming from the site.
After all, excitement is contagious – and the Mollenbrick family was nearly beside themselves with joy seeing the walls of their Holt Street, Flomaton, house reach to the sky.
Rebecca Mollenbrink puts her first nail in her new Habitat for Humanity home Saturday.
A team of nearly 20 worked throughout the day raising walls, putting up house wrap and building a home for the newest Escambia County Habitat for Humanity family.
Rebecca Mollenbrink and her two sons, Max and Tyler, said they can’t wait to call the house a home.
“I’m not sure if it’s sank in,” she said of the process. “It’s been a year, but I’m just beside myself. I’m a single mom, and we’ve been living in East Brewton in Dalton Trailer Park. We’ve always lived in rentals, and I can’t wait to have a place where my sons can bring their family.”
A lunchroom worker at McCall school, Mollenbrink said her $500 a month rent payment could be gone as soon as May when her three bedroom “super energy efficient” Habitat home is finished.
“Right now, it’s at least $750 for rent and utilities,” she said. “They told me my mortgage payment shouldn’t be any more than $400 a month the light bill around $100. That will be so amazing.”
Volunteers from Brewton, Atmore and Flomaton – including a group of ladies from the First United Bank in Atmore and Flomaton – worked at the site Saturday. HFH director Aleicia Glaize said volunteers will be back at this Saturday.
The build is expected to be completed by the summer.
One must be 16 or older to volunteer at a Habitat site, and one mustn’t be a skilled labor to help.
When asked what it’s like to be chosen as a Habitat recipient, Mollenbrink said, “I don’t know if I can put it into words. I guess, excited.
“When I had kids, I assumed be married forever; that I’d raise my children in our home, and that they’d bring their kids there when they got married,” she said. “Things don’t always work out the way you think they’ll work out, though.
“We moved quite a few times,” she said. “It’s been hard on them. To have a permanent home, where they can finish growing up and when they move out, they can come back, it will be that permanent place – that place they call ‘home.’”
