PORT TOWNSEND — Clive Rainey, Habitat for Humanity International’s first volunteer, said he never thought in 1977 that the organization that empowers needy families to become homeowners would ever approach 400,000 homes built around the world.
But that is the case 33 years later.
Rainey — who joined Habitat founders Millard and Linda Fuller at Habitat’s headquarters in Americus, Ga., in April 1977, less than a year after the Fullers founded the organization in 1976 — came to Port Townsend on Friday.
He thanked volunteers with Habitat for Humanity of East Jefferson County and its Furniture and More Store for their ambitious efforts in raising thousands of dollars to build 19 Habitat houses over the years.
“We are not alone. We are transforming the world with our hammers,” Rainey told about 30 volunteers inside the future living room of East Jefferson County’s 19th home, the largest so far with five bedrooms in 1,440 square feet on 21st St.
Asked how the program became so successful, Rainey said, “Volunteers heard the message and said maybe we can make a difference and maybe we can build a house.
“It’s pretty unimaginable what’s happened over the years.”
Habitat for Humanity typically thrives with the support of volunteer forces who help needy families through an affordable, nonprofit, no-interest home mortgage loans program in which clients contribute to building the homes through “sweat equity.”
Doug Dahlgren, associate executive director of Tacoma Pierce County Habitat for Humanity, brought Rainey to Port Townsend.
Rainey said he was impressed with the Furniture and More Store on Upper Sims Way.
“This is a very unique one,” he said. “It really is quite lovely.”
Jamie Maciejewski, East Jefferson Habitat executive director, said the local organization has between 300 and 400 volunteer members.
It is running strong in a community that the umbrella organization considers too small for a successful program, she said.
Maciejewski said East Jefferson Habitat’s volunteers build three houses a years and will be building four houses a year beginning in 2011.
She said the proposed 20th home will be funded through donations and other sources.
Rainey, who travels the world to promote the program, told the local volunteers he frequently runs into people in his travels who have built or grown up in Habitat homes and have fond memories of them.
One of Rainey’s early duties was serving as chairman of the Family Selection Committee for the house-building program of Koinonia, a rural Ohio community where the idea of building homes in partnership with the poor was conceived.
Sweat equity
Rainey brought the concept of sweat equity to Koinonia — and ultimately Habitat — after learning of a housing development in Ohio where homeowners contributed labor in lieu of a down payment.
In the summer of 1978, Rainey was sent to Immokalee, Fla., to assist that fledgling affiliate — Habitat for Humanity’s third — in setting up its family selection process.
The first homeowners there were required to do 2,000 hours of sweat equity — the equivalent of a whole year’s paid labor.
In May 1979, Rainey went to Kinshasa, which is the capital of Congo, and began three years of work on Habitat’s third international project.
After reading a book about life under dictator Idi Amin, Rainey felt compelled to take skills he had learned in Zaire (a former name of Congo) and apply them to the effort to rebuild Uganda.
The first permanent structure built in Uganda in a decade was a little two-room house built by Habitat for Humanity with a widow and her two children.
In September 1983, having successfully launched the work in Uganda, Rainey returned to Americus and became Habitat’s first Africa area director.
Under his direction, Habitat’s work in Africa spread to multiple sites in 12 countries.
In 1998, Rainey recommended that Habitat launch a challenge to affiliates and their communities to eliminate — or, in the case of major cities, significantly reduce — substandard housing within a 20-year period.
Habitat for Humanity’s 21st Century Challenge was officially launched March 1, 1999, with Rainey as its director.
In this role as community relations representative, Rainey travels to communities urging local Habitat affiliates to create collaborative partnerships with other housing providers, local governments, civic groups, churches, and other organizations and individuals to meet this challenge.
Rainey said that, in recent years, the program has taken hold most strongly in Guatemala, where some 30,000 Habitat for Humanity homes have been built.
Rainey cited the help and support of former President Jimmy Carter and first lady Rosalind in the 1980s.
“We would never be hear in this room together if it weren’t for their involvement,” he told the volunteers.
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Port Townsend-Jefferson County Editor Jeff Chew can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at jeff.chew@peninsuladailynews.com.
