Ever Need a Brush with Kindness?

Do you own your home?

Does your house need exterior paint?

Does your yard need new landscaping or fence repairs?

Are you low-income or on a fixed income?

If you (or someone you know) answered yes to any of the above you may qualify for Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County's A Brush with Kindness home repair program.

A Brush with Kindness (ABWK) assists homeowners impacted by age, disability and family circumstances who struggle to maintain the exterior of their homes.  Our aim is to allow these homeowners to reclaim the pride and dignity of homeownership by offering an affordable means of exterior home improvement to maintain the value of the home.

ABWK joins forces with other nonprofits, corporate partners, an volunteers to repair, repaint, and landscape homes. We are looking for homeowners to receive help from the A Brush with Kindness program.

If you would like to receive help or want more information, please read our Homeowner eligibility checklist or contact Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County at 805-692-2226 or by email. Family income must be under 80% of Santa Barbara's area median income so be sure to check the income chart here. 

A Brush with Kindness driveway before and after.

A Brush with Kindness fence before and after.

Double your giving

Citrix Online volunteers at the Habitat site

We at Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County appreciate financial contributions of any size. All gifts help Habitat with our mission of building simple, low-cost homes in partnership with low-income families in need of decent and affordable housing. We're also thankful for the many companies that encourage employees to donate to Habitat with matching gift programs. 

Many companies offer matching gift programs to encourage employees to contribute to charitable organizations and match match tax-deductible charitable contributions made by their employees, retirees and employees’ spouses. Some provide matching funds to support employee volunteer hours. 

There are over 1,000 companies that offer matching gift programs to their employees or provide matching funds for volunteer hours. It's easy to find out if yours offers matching gifts and it's easy to start making your donations pack twice the punch.   

Check and see if your company is one Habitat's matching partners Here and be sure to designate your donation to Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County. 

What can I donate to the ReStore?

The ReStore truck.

Here at Habitat for Humanity Santa Barbara we are often asked what specific items the ReStore can accept. We recently updated our Donation Guidelines cheat-sheet and wanted to share it with you. Bottom line - we hope you consider the ReStore first when you're looking to donate used household items.

 items The ReStore Is Not Able to accept:

·      Mirrors and Glass without frames

·      Sinks or Toilets with stains, rust or chips

·      Water heaters older than 5 years

·      Carpet or rugs

·      Single pane windows

·      Hollow core or Slab doors

·      Linoleum

·      Non Low flow toilets (Low flow toilets have a 1.6 gallon mark near top of seat)

·      Electrical fixtures that are missing parts or not in working order

·      Tile in quantities less than 12 square feet

·      Items that are broken or missing parts

·      All Liquids:  Paint, Solvents and Chemicals

The ReStore offers pick-ups:

·      Tuesday afternoons

·      Wednesday – Friday mornings

 To schedule a pick-up, please call 805-692-2226 and ask for Joel.

 

A few examples of the ReStore's inventory. Many more photos can be found on our Flickr page.

Photos from Goleta's A Brush with Kindness

A Brush with Kindness, Goleta April 2011, a set on Flickr.

We're happy to share pictures from Habitat for Humanity Santa Barbara's second "A Brush with Kindness" home repair. Over the course of three workdays Habitat welcomed groups of volunteers  from Starbucks Coffee, Goleta Valley Beautiful, Santa Barbara City College and many more to the home repair site in Goleta. In total we had over 40 volunteers help at the site. Be sure to check out the before and after photos - they speak a thousand words. 

Thank you to all who volunteered. This project was completed thanks to your time and effort.

Habitat's press release from the project: Habitat for Humanity Southern Santa Barbara Joins with Goleta Valley Beautiful To Complete "A Brush with Kindness" Home Repair in Goleta

Earth Day with Habitat for Humanity

Happy Earth Day everyone! April 22nd marks the day when people across the world pause to think about how we can better treat the planet. Here at Habitat we are using the day to increase awareness of our environmental initiatives. Not only do we try to build affordable homes in an environmentally friendly way, but we also run the Habitat ReStore which has diverted over 200 tons of usable materials from our local landfills.

Three ways to Celebrate Earth Day with Habitat for Humanity:

Volunteer Orientation: Saturday, 4/23 at 10am at the Habitat ReStore. Learn how you can volunteer and help Habitat keep tons of usable materials out of our landfills.

Earth Day Work Day: Plant trees and provide minor exterior home repairs during Habitat’s “A Brush with Kindness” project at a house in Goleta from 9-4pm. Register for this workday at www.sbhabitat.org

ReStore Workshop: In honor of Earth Day we will be hosting a workshop throughout the day on Saturday and explore creative ways to reuse recycled materials found in the ReStore. Examples include turning old sinks, shutters or mailboxes into flower planters and making chicken feeders out of recycled plastic tubing.

 

Creative vertical garden made from an old window shutter.

Mailbox and drawer flower planters.

Toilet turned flower planter.

Building materials being turned into flowerpots.

Be sure to visit the ReStore on April 23rd to see these examples and more!