Habitat houses dedicated in touching ceremony

Riding by a Habitat for Humanity dedication ceremony for two new homes in Riverstation on Sunday was like riding by an almost ideal all-America.

Kids were playing, jeans were hanging to dry, and melons were growing at neighborhood houses. Across a grassy bank, and a peek through boxcars sitting on railroad tracks, the Neuse River was running.

And the porches of two homes on Pasteur Street were filled with family and friends of Maria Mewborn, and Pete and Colleen Gartin. They were ready to help dedicate the new dwellings and help make the houses into homes.

There were prayers, scriptures read, and tears of joy in the brief dedication ceremony.

Mewborn said, “I’m one of those people, that when I stand up to talk, my thoughts sit down,” but she very eloquently thanked the volunteers and staff of Habitat for Humanity of Greater New Bern for the chance at the good life.

She said earlier she sought the Habitat house and did the sweat equity to build it so she could have a safe neighborhood for her son, Jayden. They lived in public housing and have been working since October 2008.

Mewborn and the Gartin’s invested at least 250 hours each of sweat equity in the homes that volunteers and Habitat staff helped them to build.

The Gartin's have six children and lived in a building outside Pete’s family home while they worked for this new house of their own.

Pete Gartin said, “Thanks to everybody. I saw how hard everybody worked on this house and feel really blessed.”

George Sawyer, a Habitat working volunteer and board treasurer, presented the keys to the homes both families now own with a 0-percent mortgage along with six other families in houses along North Cool and Pasteur streets.

Local Habitat director Jane Kistler-Halweg said Habitat housing helps “break the cycle of generational and situational poverty. It stabilizes families. It stabilizes the neighborhood.”

The families also got picnic tables, built by the youth of Broad Creek Christian Church, and were given flower and landscaping materials by the Trent Woods Garden Club.

Kistler-Halweg said the next big Habitat event is an Oct. 17 and 18 Blitz Build where two houses will be built in two days by volunteers.

“We need everybody’s help,” she said. Whether to pound nails with site supervisor James Garner, or pour water or serve food for the workers, there is a job for anyone interested in helping.

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Want to help?

To help with the Oct. 17-18 Blitz Build contact Habitat for Humanity at (252) 633-9599.