A Brush With Kindness

About the ABWK Program

A Brush with Kindness (ABWK) is Habitat's house-preservation initiative that focuses on minor repairs, painting, weather-stripping and landscaping. It is part of Habitat's broader Neighborhood Revitalization Initiative that will enable affiliates to offer a wider variety of construction services using the Habitat model.

A Brush with Kindness is a program that helps homeowners that are struggling to restore and maintain a safe and decent place to live. When basic expenses exceed income month after month, home maintenance is the usual casualty. Years of deferred maintenance can cause a downward spiral of home deterioration and unsafe living conditions.

Here are some basic questions that will help to identify the neediest:

Are you living in challenging circumstances which have created issues that are beyond what you can handle?
Are you struggling to keep your home in livable condition?
Have you had to choose between paying for food, medication, taxes and basic utilities?
Are you facing city code violations or homeowner insurance cancellation due to the condition or your home?

Here is a representative look at the minor repairs that are done through ABWK:

Window repair (screen, glass, glazing), scrape, paint, caulk, door replacement, minor siding & trim repair, landscaping (pruning/trimming, weeding, reseeding), clean up, brush removal, junk removal, board replacement in porch/stair/ramp, minor roof repair & soffit/fascia replacement

A Brush With Kindness will do more than give a facelift to needed homes, ABWK will....

Embrace the mission of eliminating substandard housing
Create a program that allows for greater community support
Establishes sponsorships based on Neighborhood Revitalization Initiatives
Provides more volunteer opportunities for people of all ages
Connects us to every corner of our affiliate area
Provides a program that allows us to offer assistance to the local municipalities.