Bend women join others, grab toolboxes for Women Build Week

Thousands of women all across the nation are grabbing their tool boxes.
For the ninth year, Habitat for Humanity and Lowe’s are partnering for their annual Women Build Week.

More than 300 Habitat organizations nationwide are participating, including Bend Area Habitat.

“I really can’t even put it into words. We’ve wanted to own our own house for so long now,” Bend resident Katie Graham said Saturday.

Soon, she and her husband will.

“Women Build is really a program that’s designed to empower women, to help them to understand that they truly can make a difference,” said Robin Cooper, director of development Bend Area Habitat.

About 40 volunteers, most of them women, helped Graham upgrade her living situation Saturday.

Graham said she was looking forward to “having a space for our kids where they’re not all shoved into one room, because right now we’re in a two-bedroom, one bath. So all three kids share one room.”

Women Build Week asks women to devote at least one day to building decent and affordable housing in their communities.

The week is meant to spotlight homeownership challenges faced by women.

“The folks that we serve are, –they’re low income people, but they’re working hard to make a difference for their families,” Cooper said. “Most of the families that we serve actually have single moms as the head of household.”

In fact, about 75 percent of those helped in Bend are single moms. And although Graham doesn’t fit in that category, she said that without Habitat for Humanity, homeownership wasn’t a possibility.

“With the high cost of housing in Bend, it would have never have been able to happen. And we were thinking of moving., which is really sad,” Graham said.

Now, instead of having to move out of the area, the family will be moving into a new home this summer.

More information on Habitat for Humanity and Women Build Week can be found at http://www.habitat.org. For more on what’s happening locally, visit:http://www.bendhabitat.org/