Whether we’re coming home from a taxing day at work or returning from a weeklong vacation, it’s almost always good to be home.
For April and Jammie, who recently purchased their homes through Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg, it’s good to have a home. Both are first-time homeowners who moved into Williamsburg houses constructed by the nonprofit earlier this year. April made national headlines when she moved into the first-ever completed Habitat 3D printed house in the nation just in time to celebrate Christmas last December with her teenage son.
“My son and I are so thankful,” she said through tears at the Habitat dedication ceremony. “I always wanted to be a homeowner. It’s a dream come true.”
Jammie grew up constantly moving and occasionally living out of hotels — a life she didn’t want for her children and nieces. When she moved into her Habitat home just a few days before Thanksgiving, she became the first in her immediate family to own a home.
“I’m excited to finally have financial stability and about being able to give that to my kids,” Jammie said during the dedication ceremony for her Habitat home.
Heartfelt stories like those, families discovering what most of us take for granted— a stable place to lay your head every night — are behind a fundraiser that Gloucester company Consociate Media is spearheading for Habitat for Humanity Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg with the support of the Williamsburg Winery.
Consociate Media, a marketing and communications firm, marked its 10th anniversary in business in 2021, a milestone owners wanted to celebrate by giving back to the community that has helped the business grow.
The Peninsula and Greater Williamsburg Habitat affiliate is a Consociate Media client with a mission that resonates with Founder and Managing Partner Stephanie Heinatz, who drew up plans for Consociate Media in her home at her dining room table.
“Home — it’s where Consociate Media started,” she said. “It was where it was dreamed up. It was where all the operations happened for the first couple of years.”
The harsh reality that not everybody has a place to call home inspired Consociate Media to initiate a fundraiser with Habitat called “The House That Small Business Built.” Most small businesses can’t donate the full $125,000 it costs to construct a Habitat house. But brick by brick, fundraiser by fundraiser, Consociate Media is asking small businesses to make an impact by giving what they can.
Consociate Media donated the first $10,000 in seed money and started a fundraiser with another of its clients, the Williamsburg Winery, to support the project. A portion of sales of the winery’s Weekend Plans, an American Riesling, supports the House That Small Business Built, projected to be constructed in Charles City in 2023.
The wine retails at the winery’s retail shop for $14. It can also be purchased online here and shipped.
Heinatz and others from the Consociate Media team attend many of the local Habitat dedication ceremonies, and they’re all special moments for the families.
“They’re home – in their own home that they bought and own – and sometimes it’s the first time in their life they can say that,” Heinatz said.
And being home makes all the difference in the world.
Want to support the House That Small Business Built? Give online here.
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