18 Jan HVB Teams Continue to Make Impact
We continue to be impressed and inspired with the quality of folks that come to us as part of a Hawai’i Village Build (HVB) team. Hawai’i Village Builds are organized volunteer trips where individuals from various places, join together as a team that is coordinated by a Team Leader, to visit the Hawaiian Islands to support our mission of building homes, communities and hope. These teams use their own resources to cover their expenses, work alongside our staff as volunteers and make financial contributions, all in an effort to ensure that members of our community have access to a safe, decent and affordable place to call home.
As you can imagine, HVB teams make a tremendous impact at Kaua’i Habitat and on Kaua’i as a whole. On a typical Hawai’i Village Build trip volunteers spend ten days with us and take on a variety of projects. These projects can be anything from various stages of construction to working in our ReStore or even helping with our fundraising efforts. Our more recent groups were able to frame and stand walls in Waimea, do home improvement projects at our volunteer house in ‘Ele’ele, and work in our ReStore generating much needed funds for our building program. All of the work done by these volunteers goes a long way toward helping a local family achieve the dream of homeownership.
While these visiting volunteers are with us, we always want them to feel the aloha spirit. One of the benefits of volunteer tourism is that you get to meet and interact with the locals. It offers volunteers an opportunity to meet people of different backgrounds, races and religions and get to know a culture that is deeply rooted in spirituality and sense of place. They make a connection with the homebuyers they are helping, and in turn our homebuyers share with them their stories and leave an imprint on their lives. Whether it’s learning the art of making a lei or simply sharing a local dish, these volunteers make memories and connections they would never make visiting as a regular tourist.
The Hawai’i Village Build program is organized by our Affiliate Support Organization (ASO) the Hawai’i Habitat for Humanity Association. If you are interested in learning more about leading or joining a HVB team, please visit their website by clicking here.
