A working-class family moved last month into a St. Louis Park Habitat for Humanity house sponsored by Thrivent Financial, marking the 2,000th Habitat for Humanity home built in Minnesota by volunteers and sweat-equity owners over the last three decades.
Thrivent Financial awarded $425,166 to help build and rehab five more local homes in 2013. And Thrivent recently committed to $6.8 million of Habit for Humanity affiliates nationally next year, enough to build and rehab 130-plus homes.
In total, "Thrivent Builds with Habitat for Humanity" has invested $180 million and 3.5 million volunteer hours in what is Habitat's single-largest corporate partnership.
"The experience is rewarding in many ways," said the Rev. Bonnie Wilcox, a Thrivent Build volunteer. "It's just such a powerful way to affect change in the lives of others."
The partnership consists of three programs: Thrivent Builds Homes, Thrivent Builds Worldwide and Thrivent Builds Repairs. Thrivent Financial volunteers have helped working-poor families construct, renovate and repair more than 2,900 homes in the United States, El Salvador, Guatemala and elsewhere.
"When people have safe, decent homes, it's good for everyone and there is financial security in prudent homeownership," said Thrivent Builds coordinator Pat Ostruska. "And there's an emotional impact with our volunteers. For many people, it's life-changing to actually build alongside family members who will enjoy the home. It can be a profound experience."
Thrivent, a Fortune 500 financial services firm, is chartered as a not-for-profit fraternal organization that donates through its members an amount that approximates what it would otherwise pay in taxes. As a result of the often-matching efforts of Lutheran congregations and volunteers, the numbers are multiplied. Thrivent members alone have raised more than $17 million over the last several years for Habitat projects.
SHORT TAKES
Minneapolis-based Peace Coffee and its parent organization, the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (IATP), are taking a crowdsourcing approach to help finance small growers in Mexico and Central America who often lack reasonable credit. They are appealing to customers and fans of the fair trade movement to check out www.growahead.org and invest as little as $25 into an inaugural $60,000 fund through Grow Ahead and Cooperative Coffees, a coffee importer that is owned by its member-roasters.
