habitat director

By Tami Lange Mosser
February 11, 2014
371

Beth Weaver remembers living in a two-bedroom duplex with her husband and six children. Homeownership was never even a thought. When you have that many kids, Weaver said, you just want to get through the day. There was, she said, no time to dream. But then a friend told Weaver about Habitat for Humanity in Wayne County. The organization would give her family a home, the friend said. Thats not the way Habitat works. Weaver knows, because shes seen the organization from both sides – once as part of a partner family and now as the organizations executive director. Weaver assumed the top spot at the local non-profit in January, though shes been involved with Habitat for years, dating back to her time as a client. Her family wanted to live in Apple Creek back then, she said, because they liked the schools and were serving as a foster family. But Habitat had no lots there. Weaver recalled a few of the organizations volunteers drove through the village and spotted a lot on Mill Street. The lot wasnt listed for sale, she said, but the volunteers found the owner and negotiated the sale. She was impressed by their commitment and even more so when she saw how many volunteers turned out to help build the house. One lady took her vacation, Weaver said, and came and worked all week at the house. Each Habitat partner family is assigned an advocate and Weaver said she still remembers how the late Harold and Louella Toot took her family under their wing. They were amazing, Weaver said. They were constant in their commitment. Once the house was complete, Weaver said, Harold Toot took the Weavers out to a wooded area on his property, where he told them to pick out five trees for transplant at their new home. They named one tree Harold. It provided a lot of shade, Weaver recalled. That tree, plus flowers from Louella, helped make the Weaver house a home and showed, Weaver said, how acts of kindness can have a lasting impact. Twenty-two years later, Weaver said, I still meet people who say, I was on your roof. I put shingles on your roof. But the happiness of the Weaver family did not last. Weavers husband, Ray, rendered deaf by a childhood bout of spinal meningitis, died in 2000. Theyd had their home for eight years. Weaver soldiered on. She had a story to tell and she often accompanied Habitats then-executive director Marty Ramsburg to speaking engagements to recount her familys experiences with the organization. She also became an advocate, a good way to stay involved, she said. Eventually, she took a paying job as Habitats church relations director and added office management duties along the way. She later stepped in to fill an opening at the Habitat ReStore on Woosters Spruce Street Extension. When executive director Jane Dal Pra resigned in August, Weaver moved to the interim director position and was named to the top spot last month by the organizations Board of Directors. Beth is the embodiment of the success of our mission in helping lower income families have a decent and affordable place to live, said board chair Heather Veney. During my time on the board, I have enjoyed working with Beth and appreciated her insights into what makes this organization work so well. Beth provides a unique perspective to guide our partner families toward home ownership. I am thrilled with her personal growth with Habitat and am confident that she will be a great leader of our organization. Weaver said she wants to continue to work with partner families, while she learns the ropes of non-profit leadership, skills that she said her mentor, Judy Delaney of Goodwill Industries of Wayne and Holmes Counties, is helping her with. Im able to put the responsibility of Habitat directly on the shoulders on the partner families, she said, because it is those families who are living billboards for what the organization is trying to accomplish. Nobody is given a house, regardless of what she might have heard early on. Partner families need to know that this is not about you getting a house, Weaver said. This is about all of us working together to make a positive impact in this community. She sees the organization as part of the continuum of social service outreach in Wayne County, where people may initially seek food and emergency shelter, then move on to independent living and parenting skills, job training and then on to home ownership. They keep growing, she said. They make new goals and have a bright future. Potential partner families must go through an application process and meet eligibility requirements, Weaver said, then put in sweat equity hours on both their home as well as on other Habitat projects. Finance and home ownership classes also must be completed. Weaver recently got to tell her story again, this time in one of her daughters classes at Mount Vernon Nazarene University. Habitat, Weaver told the group is something huge that has affected our lives. The fact that I get to be involved with this family and this family and this family and where theyre going It gives me goosebumps.

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