2401 Winding Road
The Yeager Family
Dorla & Daughters
PARKERSBURG - Wood County Habitat for Humanity dedicated its 47th home on Sunday, providing a new house for a woman and her four children, ages 9 to 19.
During a program Sunday at the home on Winding Road, east of Parkersburg, the keys of the home and a new bible were presented by Habitat officials and volunteers to Dorla Yeager and her children, daughters Mia, 9, and Micah, 15, and sons Noah, 17, and Ian, 19.
Yeager said she was born and raised in Wood County and moved to Florida about 10 years ago, where Mia was born. After Mia had a liver transplant at age 2, the family moved from Florida back to West Virginia for the support of family and the lower cost of living.
"I'm glad to be back," she said.
Yeager applied to Habitat two years ago for assistance in getting a new home. Since that time, she has been active in working for the program as part of the "sweat equity" process in which families receiving homes work on other homes and on their own.
"It was a fantastic experience, I wouldn't miss it for anything," Yeager said of the experience of working on the different homes, including her own, and she doesn't plan to stop any time soon. "I told them they're not going to get rid of me that easy," she said.
The new Yeager house is one of the rare Habitat homes with more than one story, Yeager said. Habitat homes usually don't have a basement, but because of the size of her family and the topography of the land where it was built, it was deemed feasible for the Yeager home, she said. The home has four bedrooms and an unfinished downstairs family room which may be converted into another bedroom by the family, she said.
Yeager said she was thrilled to be taking possession of the family's new home Sunday.
"It's a huge relief. The house that we've been in is an old farmhouse I grew up in, with two bedrooms and one bath, and it's been really tough the last couple of years," she said.
Alvin Phillips, executive director of Wood County Habitat for Humanity, said volunteers finished the foundation of the Yeager home last December and then left it to finish two other homes. They resumed construction in May and finished it this month.
Volunteers were working three days a week during that period on the home to bring it to completion, including a church group from Charlotte, N.C., who came for three days to work on the project. Phillips said it was his son's church which was seeking an out-of-town project and came to Parkersburg.
Wood County Habitat is currently working on its 48th home, on Avery Street in Parkersburg, and will be working on the next two homes in the coming months. Phillips said 2010 will mark the 20th anniversary for Wood County Habitat and the group hopes to complete its 50th home during the year.
Phillips said 2009 was also a good year for Habitat in general. The Habitat for Humanity of West Virginia, for which Phillips is a board member, began its 600th home in October, in Jackson County.
"It's really great. I've been around Habitat since 1990 when we were probably celebrating our 20th house in West Virginia. It really is great to look forward to the 600th house and that we can be an important part of that here in Wood County," he said.
Habitat for Humanity is a Christian ministry that builds or renovates homes with lower-income families who are currently living in substandard housing.
Wood County Habitat raises money through the agency's ReStore facility, which accepts donations of materials, appliances, furniture and other items and sells them back to the community at a discount to raise money for Habitat programs. Phillips said Wood County Habitat is in the process of expanding into a bigger building on Seventh Street, with three times the space of the current building on Elder Street.
The store accepts new and used building-related materials including appliances, furniture, cabinetry, building and construction materials, new flooring, electrical and hardware, lighting fixtures, sinks, new toilets, tubs and showers, windows, and more. Donated items can be picked up if needed, and a confirmation of donation will be provided for tax purposes.
The new ReStore will hold its grand opening on Nov. 14 at 1448 Seventh St., Phillips said. The current facility will close Oct. 30 and the new one will open two weeks later.
