MONTH IN REVIEW: August 2015

By Chris Johnson,
Director of Communications

The past month ended on a high note with the conclusion of the Fuller Center Disaster ReBuilders’ Back to Biloxi blitz build, building a new home for the Nguyen family and giving four existing homes new life through major repair or massive renovations.

We are marking our 10^th anniversary this year, and we just passed the 10^th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. It was fitting that our Back to Biloxi build wrapped up on the 10^th anniversary of Katrina and that we will be heading to Shreveport later this month for the Millard Fuller Legacy Build because the call to help house Katrina refugees in Shreveport is what led to The Fuller Center’s first homebuilding efforts in the U.S.

The Back to Biloxi build garnered great coverage for our ministry as you can see in these TV reports from early in the week and this report by Christian Broadcasting Network at the end of the week.

If you would like to join us for the Sept. 27-Oct. 2 Legacy Build in Shreveport, click here. Special hotel rates are available for reservations made by Sept. 12.

There was also some unfortunate news that a good friend of The Fuller Center and a long-time supporter of the Fullers’ work, former President Jimmy Carter, is battling cancer. While we are praying for his recovery, we must say that we are impressed with the way he is handling this situation, which is how he handles everything in his life — with dignity, honesty, optimism and great faith.

Meanwhile, here are just some of the news and notes you may have missed during the month of August:

• The Fuller Center Bicycle Adventure — whose 4,000-mile summer ride from California to Maine ended August 15 — set records for fundraising and participation. We bid a fond farewell to our outstanding 2015 volunteer leader Lydia Huelskamp and Connor Ciment is on his way to Americus soon to begin planning the next year of the adventure.

• Speaking of the Bicycle Adventure, the group garnered excellent press coverage during its journey, including the first couple of weeks in August. Among the best reports was this one from News4Buffalo.

• Fuller Center President David Snell went to Indianapolis to meet with leaders of Servants At Work, Inc. (better known as SAWs). The meeting resulted in a partnership to help Fuller Center covenant partners receive wheelchair ramps that the organization builds. Get more details here.

• The Lott Carey Herald magazine featured two extensive articles about our work in Nepal and in Haiti. Click here to see the reports.

• The Marriott Hotel in Yerevan, Armenia, teamed up once again with Fuller Center Armenia to help a family there have a simple, decent home. Here’s the report.

• Fuller Center Armenia excels in developing partnerships to further its work, as this report on their partnership with VivaCell-MTS shows.

• Our newest work site in Haiti is Pignon, far from the earthquake-ravaged areas where we began working years ago. While Pignon is new and is a more traditional covenant partner rather than a disaster recovery effort, they are off to a fast start and dedicated their 5^th home.

• We have an extensive new SlideShare presentation about our initiative to build 200 safe, new homes in Nepal that you can view, download and share as needed.

• We shared a post we probably should share more often — The Fuller Center for Housing is among the less than 0.5% (yes, less than 1 percent) of nonprofits to have received the Guidestar Gold seal for openness and transparency in its operation. Guidestar asks nonprofits to submit numerous documents and reports so that its visitors can effectively make decisions about which nonprofits to support. You can visit our profile on the GuideStar exchange here.

Of course, again, that’s just some of what’s been going on. You can always stay up to date at Fullercenter.org and on our Facebook page. Next month’s month in review likely will be a few days late as I make my way back from covering the Legacy Build in Shreveport. We’re looking forward to a great week there!