Q&A with Jeff Cardwell, Board Chairman, about thriving operations in El Salvador

Q&A with Jeff Cardwell, Board Chairman, about thriving operations in El Salvador

Jeff Cardwell, chairman of The Fuller Center for Housing’s board of directors, is also the founder of The People Helping People Network — our partners in El Salvador. Housing is one of several areas of focus for The People Helping People Network in the country. They also work in the areas of hunger relief, healthcare and education.

Cardwell visited operations in El Salvador last week along with Fuller Center President David Snell and sat down Thursday to chat via Zoom with our Vice President of Communications, Chris Johnson. Here is an excerpt from that conversation:

CHRIS: We talk at The Fuller Center about “Building a better world, one house at a time.” But it’s hard to see one house at a time in El Salvador the way they’re building left and right. This program is designed where the more you build, the more you can build as the repayments are recycled and build over and over again. But could you ever have imagined the scale and the way it’s taking off right now?

JEFF: You know, really, I could not. It’s just so many good people coming together. I think what we’ve seen here is exponential growth by the partnership between The Fuller Center for Housing and The People Helping People Network. With Fuller Center for Housing being 100 percent focused on providing housing — the foundation for a family; you cannot have the growth within the family if you don’t have that firm foundation of a home — it all begins there with The Fuller Center for Housing. Then you bring in the energy and the opportunities with the wrap-around services of The People Helping People Network. I think we’re now seeing that exponential growth of community and neighborhoods within The Fuller Center as we bring in the hunger relief, the healthcare and the education programs.

(The People Helping People Network operates on the HOPE Equation — Housing + Hunger Relief + Healthcare + Education x Faith = HOPE.)

We find that when we are able to help people in crisis of food insecurity or healthcare needs or training programs, they really become better homeowners and are more reliable on their payments back to The Fuller Center so that we can recycle those funds within the community to build more homes. You’re taking the people living there now, and you’re making those people very connected within their community as donors to really pay it forward to help the next family of need. We’re really being blessed to see exponential growth by having that special partnership.