In June Central VT Habitat for Humanity, an affordable housing non-profit, hosted a children’s poster design contest where we invited kids in grades K-6 to submit artwork that showed what “home” looks like to them. From an adult perspective homeownership is often thought of as a financial asset, but as we learned from these children home means much more than that. Home is family, it is a place full of memories, and quite succinctly “home is the best place ever!”
Contestants drew, painted, and used a computer to make their art and to show us what home means to them. Each of the artists received four tickets for them and their families to attend the Vermont Mountaineers baseball game which were generously donated by the Mountaineers.
Our volunteer outreach committee created this campaign as a way to connect with our community members to let them know that we are seeking property for our next Habitat build. We would like for more people to understand the work that we do and the importance of creating homeownership opportunities for income sensitive families. Homeowners for people who grew up in a house that was owned by their parents sometimes take for granted the value that having a home has had on their lives. We wanted to try and capture the sentiment of what homeownership means through the unfiltered eyes of children. What does “home” mean to you? We will use this art in future promotions of our program to remind people in our communities of how important having a home is in every aspect of our lives. We will also use this artwork for our partner homeowner application period this fall.
Learn more about our work and how to apply for our affordable homeownership program at www.centralvermonthabitat.org.
Our poster design finalists are Nandika Manoj a 1st grader from Montpelier, Krishnareddy Daggula a 3rd grader from Montpelier and William Hasselback a 5th grade from East Calais.
Habitat for Humanity, powered by volunteers in local communities like ours worldwide, has been building homes in partnership with families in need for more than thirty years.