This December, the team at New Leaf Builders had an opportunity to volunteer with Dorchester Habitat for Humanity in their Play House Project, an event that provides a child in a low-income family with an outdoor playhouse to call their own for Christmas.
The event had a larger turnout than expected with around 20 teams volunteering to build donations, and was a first for the organization in Dorchester, which was planned and put into action 6 months ago by event leader Moriah Hollander.
When a company donation of $3,000 was submitted to participate, each team was randomly assigned a child between ages of 5-10 with only a general criterion of their interests, and each team could then make their own decisions on how to paint and decorate the finished playhouse with those interests in mind.
New Leaf’s child was a little girl named Naomi, a 6-year-old who loves princesses and the color pink. Challenge accepted!
The playhouses were assembled by the teams with printed instructions and the event volunteers’ advice along the way. The base house included a kit of precut walls, trim, support bindings, base standing floor buildout, roof boards and shingles, and all of the minor tools and materials needed were provided to us for the project, although teams were encouraged to bring any additional items they wanted to decorate the playhouse.
Our volunteers took the opportunity to add a pink detailed trim crown for the exterior, a flower carpet rug, some interior string lights, a Disney princess vanity, and a few dolls.
Many of the other team’s designs went above and beyond as well, including a full NASA space house and rocket; a giant ladybug house; a Lego themed house; a dinosaur safari; and even a train station with operational railroad crossing arm!
We worked on the play house from 8:30 to 3:00 at the Lowes Appliance Distribution Warehouse in Dorchester, and the families arrived around 4 to find their new playhouse and to meet the builder teams. Lowes volunteers then transported the houses to the families shortly after.
Special thanks to our volunteers, who made this special project come to life for Naomi and her family! We hope this little house gets lots of tea parties for years to come.
The team at New Leaf Builders consisted of: Brandon Wall, Brett Miller, Christina Henderson, Kendall Cordina, and Sherry Murrie. Our outside volunteers include Brandon Winston, Hailey Sobota, Sarah Bjork.
You can learn more about Project Play House and Habitat for Humanity here.
