Duinkerken Homes, Inc. ~ Quality Asheville Home Builders

We try to participate in several community projects each year....

Please Help Me in Supporting Women Build 2012

The AHBA is proud to be hosting an entire week to help with the 2012 Habitat for Humanity Women Build program!  Women Build brings together women from all walks of life to address the housing crisis facing millions of women and children worldwide. Women Build events have helped to construct more than 1,900 houses, seven in the Asheville area alone.

This year’s Asheville recipient is Rhonda Chapman and her three children.  Rhonda has worked tirelessly throughout the application process to qualify for a Habitat home. Having been raised in public housing and then a renter of an apartment in the same community, Rhonda decided she wanted to make a change. Setting a long term goal of homeownership, she returned to school while she continued to work full time. After graduation, Rhonda began working as a case manager in the child support system, and applied for Habitat. Upon being notified of her approval, Rhonda exclaimed, “Oh, thank you so much. I can’t wait to start working!”

Please join the women in our community to help Rhonda build a home for her family and achieve her long term goal of being a homeowner in the Shiloh community.  The AHBA has signed up for the most critical week in this process at Habitat: framing week.  If you don’t have any construction skills, don’t worry! Many women come to Women Build sites with no construction skills at all and still make a great impact. Training is provided.  

The AHBA volunteer times are available Tuesday, March 20th - Saturday, March 24th, with a mandatory site time from 8-3:30.  We are also looking for companies to sponsor donuts or lunch on these days. We would like to invite ALL of you out for the wall raising ceremony on Wednesday, March 21st at noon.  This is a great opportunity to help someone who has worked extremely hard to better herself and her family.  Let us all come together the week of March 20th to help Rhonda become a successful homeowner. 

For more information on volunteering or to sign up for a date, please contact Kate Duinkerken directly at 828-450-5690 or dhomes@charter.net . 

Weatherization Services

Kate is now heading the Community Services Committee through the Asheville Home Builder Association (AHBA).  Specifically, I am working directly on the Insulate program, which is a collaboration between the AHBA, Community Action Opportunities and Warren Wilson.  I will be coordinating a few larger community projects as well, but wanted to have the information from this brochure on our website for everyone to see.  Until we began working with the AHBA two years ago on one of these projects, I was not aware such a program in our community, which is why I am passing this information on to you. I would like to make all of our contacts to be that such services are out there in case they know a family who could benefit from such services.  As with all community outreach, the waiting list is long, which might be a deterrent for registering.  However, Brandon and I have personally worked on a house each fall/spring for the last two years and the changes that are provided in the home are AMAZING and worth the wait. Thank you for taking the time to read the following information from the Community Action Opportunities Brochure and please contact Kate if you would like any further information:  

Everyone would live in a safe and healthy home if they could afford it. Unfortunately, many families on limited incomes cannot. Community Action Opportunities offers Weatherization Services to help these residents improvethe health, safety and energy efficiency of their homes while saving money on their utility bills.  Through our Weatherization Assistance Program, we make home improvements that result in safer and more energy efficient homes. Our trained crew visits the customer’s home to identify problems.Then, we determine the best approach to improve the home’s energy efficiency. This may include:

-Insulating attics, walls, floors, heat ducts, pipes and water heaters

-Testing the safety and efficiency of the primaryheating system

-Patching walls, floors and ceilings

-Testing and installing smoke alarms and carbon monoxide detectors

-Providing information to customers about how they can make and keep their homes safe and energy efficient 

-Replacing old energy-consuming refrigerators

-Repairing or replacing faulty windows and doors

Community Action Opportunities relies on and welcomes community support for financial contributions, additionalresources, volunteer service, collaborations and partnerships. 

www.communityactionopportunities.org

ArtSpace Charter School Gardening and Tool Shed

ArtSpace Charter School needed a shed to store all of their gardening supplies, with the possibility of having a greenhouse section in the shed for early spring starts.  Kate coordinated with ProBuild in Hendersonville to have all of the materials donated and Sherwin-Williams for the paint, while Brandon, Pierce, Dylan and Joey volunteered to build the shed.  The estimated cost of this project for materials and time is around $10,000.  Thank you to Pierce, Dylan, Joey and Brandon for all of your help building the shed!

Insulate! Program with Warren Wilson

Insulate is a program formed by Warren Wilson College, the Ashville HBA, Community Action Opportunities and other key area groups to weatherize the homes of low income families in Buncombe County.  The program utilizes volunteers from the AHBA and Community Action Opportunities to work with the students of Warren Wilson College on individual homes on Saturday work days.  The program helps mentor students will educating them on the importance of weatherization.  To date the AHBA has been a part of weatherizing 32 homes since the program’s inception in 2008!  We try and work on this project each Fall and Spring. The work day will generally run from 9-1.  Please let me know if you can commit to this community project with us so that I can get our final volunteer numbers in.  The projects are assigned according to the number of volunteers each company has coming.  This is a great way to give back to those less fortunate than us.  Please call or email Kate at dhomes@charter.net if you want to participate in this day with us.  We will give you a Duinkerken Homes shirt for helping with this awesome project that helps our community!!!

See more information about these projects by clicking here.

Sponsorship: East Coast Cloggers

Each year we try and sponsor a team to help those who are interested in participating in an extra-curricular activity, but who are experiencing financial difficulties.  Please let Kate know if you or your team are experiencing financial hardships and are in need of consideration for this sponsorship.

Sponsorship: WNC Hunter Schooling Circuit

We actively participate in the following groups and are proud to be in their membership:

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