Hannah Edwards, Community Outreach Coordinator for Habitat for Humanity of Key West and Lower Florida Keys, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about their projects.
Habitat has a warehouse that really helps the mission.
Edwards said, “It’s located in Rockland Key at 111 Overseas Highway behind where Mama’s Garden Center used to be. If you drive back, there’s a row that goes all the way back past the storage center. And then you’ll see SOS warehouse, and we are in the back of the SOS warehouse. So it’s not a huge space, we’re doing the best we can out of that space, but we are really looking for a larger space. So if anybody knows of any large commercial space, please let us know. We sell very nice gently used items, a lot of furniture, some household goods, and building materials, at very, very reasonable prices. We are opening for regular hours again, for a while, we were not, but now we are. So we are going to be open on Thursday morning from nine to noon, as well as Tuesday mornings, nine to noon, and that will be regular hours, then we will still also do our occasional big sales on Saturday morning. You’ll just have to watch for those. Those just come up when we need to clear out the warehouse stock and get ready for new stock. So we will keep you posted on those sales. But come check us out. You can shop by appointment. And if you have anything to donate, that is also welcome. You can contact us at 305-849-1946.”
The Pride Fest Street Fair is coming up next week.
Edwards said, “We’re going to do a booth this year, we are allowed as all nonprofits are allowed to pull a liquor license for special events several times a year. So we have gotten a liquor license to have a booth. I think we’re sharing it with the Elks club, I believe. We’ll be selling some fun drinks and it should be a good time. So if you’re out and about, we’ll be right around Duvall Street. So come have a drink with us and say hello, and try and beat the heat with us.”
The Habitat education programs are very valuable.
Edwards said, “We’ve been working on our education program, bringing it to the community at large for the past few years. I think it’s a really important service, we’re still trying to figure out the best way to do it for everybody, the best location, the best format, do people prefer online or in person? So far, we’ve had a lot of good feedback on the in person. We may add an online virtual component as well at some point. But people have really valued that in person experience because they get to meet and talk to subject matter experts in different fields that live and work right here in Key West. So these are people that volunteer their time and we’re so grateful for them to share their knowledge with everybody. They’re either from various banks, realtors, attorneys, and it’s really great because they’ll give people in the class their business card, they’ll say come in and talk to me if you have any questions. I’m here to help. That’s really meaningful for somebody that’s struggling with getting their credit score right, they know they can go to one of three great banks we have and speak to somebody for free and get some help, which is really, really great.”
Classes are going on right now.
Edwards said, “You can check them out on our website for the schedule. We started them in April and we’re going to run the classes until I believe the last one for this season is June 18. Then we’re going to take a little break for summer for July and August, and then come back in September to start them again. But they are very helpful for anybody that wants to get their personal finances in order or is looking to buy a home because we talk about all kinds of things that are very important. We talk about budgeting and getting your credit in the right place. We talk about mortgages and how they work and what you need to do to get ready for that experience. We talk about how you would work with a realtor, which doesn’t apply to Habitat because you don’t need a realtor with Habitat. But it would apply if you were going to buy an existing deed restricted unit or any unit. So that’s important to know how all that works. We also talk about managing your debt and avoiding predatory lending and scams, which, unfortunately, are really ramping up these days. We talk about estate planning and a lot of other really important topics. So I do encourage people, these are free classes. It’s just an hour an hour and 15 minutes or so. Right now they’re on Tuesday nights, but they could be on any weeknight coming up. It’s really a great way to get started working on your personal finances, which, if I don’t make a specific time to do something like that, then I’m not going to do it. So I like to have a class where I can commit to that time and go and do it and what works best for me.”
Habitat for Humanity brings people together to build homes, communities and hope.
Edwards said, “Community is really at the heart of what we do. We’re helping build homes, we’re helping people buy those homes, we’re helping repair homes. But we do it all together as a community. And that is just really important because the homeowners work together, they work on each other’s homes, they go out in the community and volunteer, and they’re really becoming a community themselves and contributing to the larger community. It’s such a great thing.”
For more information, click here: https://www.habitatlowerkeys.org/