Meet The Family

The build day here in the gorgeous city of Santa Fe went swimmingly.  We split into three crews to divide the work and we got a lot accomplished.  One crew worked on roofing.  A second team constructed fences for the homes. My team worked on leveling the yards, covering the yards with weed guard material and then laying gravel over the weed barrier.  

Our Bike & Build team was also fortunate enough to be able to meet the family that will be the future owners of one of Santa Fe Habitat For Humanity's homes.  

Victoria and Alfredo Lopez, the proud parents of three beautiful children, Oscar, Hailey and Gerald, are partnering with Habitat.  Alfredo works full time in the landscaping business and Victoria works part time.  The family of five has been living in a two bedroom, one bathroom trailer home for a substantial amount of time.  Unfortunately, their son Oscar has hip problems and the situation is getting tougher and tougher for the family to navigate.  In addition to health motivations for needing to make the move, the family is also spending increasingly more money on repairs to the mobile home rather than being able to put that money toward a Habitat for Humanity mortgage.  

Victoria said that she appreciates so deeply everything that Habitat is doing for her family and mentioned that the perpsonal value in knowing that she is literally building a home for her children is priceless.  In addition to the sweat equity and mortgage components of her commitments with Habitat, Victoria also spoke to the financial classes that Santa Fe H4H has all partner families complete.  Having grown up in a family that lived pay check to pay check, Mrs. Lopez notes that her financial experience was limited but she was utilizing Habitat as a tool to help her build a better future for her children.  She says that she knows she will have the know-how to set aside money for her children to go to college. 

The Lopez family is an inspiration to me and my teammates.  I hope that you can see that this family and many others like the Lopez family are hard working individuals that face an uphill battle.