The ReStore for Mon Valley Habitat for Humanity may be closed, but that doesn’t mean its mission can’t continue, Habitat’s executive director Elaine Holstine McVay said.
In other words, you’ll still have a chance to purchase a variety of items for repurposing, while benefitting the organization that builds dwellings for families who might not have that opportunity for home ownership otherwise.
Habitat is auctioning off the entire inventory of the business at 10 a.m. Saturday at the store’s location at 1825 Earl L. Core Road.
“We really do have something for everybody,” McVay said, “from Christmas decorations to everything a do-it-yourselfer might need for a project.”
Wade’s Auction Services is handling the sale, she said, which includes the aforementioned – along with furnishings for every room in the house, small appliances, glassware, sewing machines, shopping carts and more.
Add that to the refrigerators, toilets, granite-top cabinets, sinks and toilets, the executive director said.
“If you come out to this auction, you’re going to go home with something you needed,” she said.
In October, Habitat knew what it needed to do, McVay said, though that didn’t make it an easy decision by any measure.
Even with steady walk-in traffic at the store in Sabraton, sales had been in decline for the past several months.
A decision was made to shutter the place, so Habitat, its executive director said, could redefine what got it here in the first place.
And that’s the business of getting people where they live – literally, she said.
“Our board of directors didn’t make that decision lightly,” she said, of the ReStore closure, “but now we can focus on our core mission.”
That mission, she said, of helping people and families from challenging walks of life achieve that American dream of home ownership in north-central West Virginia.
Families provide the needed “sweat equity” for the homes that will be theirs, in an exchange that isn’t just about sentiment and symbolism.
Such volunteer work keeps building costs down.
After that, Habitat does the rest, offering the zero-percent loans that let people move into those houses.
Going into 2024, in fact, ground will be broken on Nos. 70, 71 and 72 in neighboring Marion County, McVay said.
Since its local founding in 1990, Habitat has ventured from the Morgantown area to Kingwood in Preston County, and Fairmont in Marion County.
The three above-mentioned homes are going in on Robinson Street, in Fairmont’s once-thriving Bellview neighborhood.
“We’re excited,” McVay said. “Our families are excited.”
Habitat for Humanity International was founded in 1976 in Americus, Ga., and one its early marquee proponents was Jimmy Carter, the former Georgia governor who was elected to the Oval Office that same year.
Carter worked on Habitat homes extensively after leaving the White House.
To date, nearly 50 million people across the U.S. and in 70 countries have gotten to call a Habitat home – their home.
