“On A Mission” showcases leaders who are going the extra mile each and every day. Each of the people we interview is on a mission to serve, inspire and educate. Our hosts highlight their impact and explore what motivates, engages and fulfills individuals and teams to be more productive, more effective, better at what they do, and happier to do it. Today our host, Brian Sexton spoke with with Kate Ritchie, Ciera Holman, and Kelly Hennessy-Pierce.
Nate Newton
CEO at Habitat For Humanity Of Sumner County
Website Address: habitatsumnercounty.org
Ciera Holman
Director Of Community Relations at Habitat for Humanity of Sumner County
Kelly Hennessy-Pierce
Chief Operating Officer at Habitat for Humanity of Sumner County
Transcript
Brian
Welcome to the Show Brothers Showroom in Hendersonville, Tennessee for another On A Mission. We’re here for foodies Care, working with the community and some of the nonprofits doing the hard work. We’re supporting them and want to introduce you to them.
Brian
And we’ve got habitat for humanity from Sumner County with us, Kate Richie, Sierra Holeman and Kelly Hennessey. Beers. How are you, ladies?
Kate
Good.
Brian
How are you?
Brian
I’m great. Thank you for having us here. Let me ask you. You just closed one neighborhood down right Bashford Place, and you’re about to start your next place. How are things going for habitat for humanity? I know they’re going. They’re always going to give us a sense of just how well the adult things.
Kate
Are going really well. This was our first neighborhood that we built. Building nine affordable houses. Our community very proud of that. And we are launching a groundbreaking, actually, in June for our next neighbor for the Hudson, which is a six Helen pocket neighborhood. So six homes have affordable housing by our working families. Really?
Brian
I think you just put it the right way. But give me a give me the elevator speech on habitat for humanity. When people say, what do you do? Have you get them up to screen?
Ciera
Habitat for humanity helps people in our community build and repair places that they call HUD.
Brian
Okay. And you said affordable housing. We’ve seen the housing market. I’ve got to imagine in the greater Nashville area, it has exploded like it has in North Florida and all across Texas. How big is the affordability issue with respect to housing here in Tennessee?
Kate
Well, to put the numbers to actually what’s happening. The average houses, Sumner County is 410,000. The average income is $81,000. So the math does a map for the mortgage to work out that way. So what we do is we come in, we are able to serve those that make between 40 to 80% area median income and capture that missing middle there that is missing out on the housing market.
Kate
The houses are just lit up.
Brian
How’s the process go? How do you find your clients? First of all, how do you find those people that really need your services?
Ciera
So there’s an application and we call them application seasons. We open up for a number of days or months. Anyone can apply and we have qualifications for the, need for housing, which that could be overcrowding. Living with relatives, living, in a smaller home with up multiple family unit, your ability to pay. So we need to know that you can afford a affordable mortgage, right? And your willingness to partner with us. So we go hand in hand with our homeowners. We walk them through the process. They go through education classes. They do sweat equity hours all the way up until the end. They help build their home and we just go alongside them hand in hand, all the way through.
Brian
And as you said, there’s no shortage of people who need this in Sumner County. How about the process of finding the land is raising the funds and then getting the homes built? How long does that process today? How long did it take for Packard Place and how long to the next move?
Kate
You know, our process, it might look a little bit different than traditional builders. We’ll rely a lot community to help us keep our costs low. So we have been very fortunate to have land donated to us. And, with those great donations, that’s how we were able to build Packard Place. But that land was donated to us way back into 2011. We didn’t break ground will actually 2022 on that land and then this land that we have now that we’re about to break ground on. We started this process probably about two and a half years ago, finding the right land, the donor wanting to see what they wanted.
Brian
And there’s nothing sudden about.
Kate
Yeah, there’s nothing set. Y’all know y’all in the building community, you have very long process.
Brian
Tell us about how a group like Shell Brothers comes into play and how helpful they can be.
Kate
We love Shell Brothers. Shell Brothers, actually, they are sponsoring our upcoming Bay House project.Well, this is a fundraiser for us to obviously raise funds to build the houses, but this is the way that we can bring companies together to have a team building day. They all build a play houses. Just three by five. And they get a different thing.And so they come out and build the house together. Decorated how they want to decorate. And then the kids come over to shape the playhouse at the end of the day. And it’s a lot of tears, happiness and joy and just a very fun.
Brian
Well, at an event like this evening, where we bring together folks like you with a lot of people in the community, you get the sense that everyone wants to help. What is it about Sumner County that gives you that feeling that people are lining up to help? Do you see the volunteers on a daily basis?
Ciera
Oh, absolutely. I think what the habitat for humanity brand and name, we are well known in our community and then our I think Sumner County is different from any county in Tennessee. When there’s a need, there’s people lining up to help. And so, that’s what I love most about Sumner County. I don’t think this is seen anywhere else across the state of Tennessee.
Brian
So if people are watching us and they will and they want to help, they want to help you with your, your playhouse project or they want to help you with the Hudson, how do they do it? How are they going.
Kate
To visit our website? Habitat. Sumner County or or you go to on the national website. This is aired nationally. I will go to go to habitat.org. Just see the great work that we’re doing, not just here but globally on helping everybody have a decent place to live.
Brian
Kate, Sierra and Kelly who we couldn’t get to stop talking. Yes. Thanks so much for joining us here on a mission. And we’re back with more.
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