Let’s Open the Door

Habitat for Humanity is marking 50 years of bringing people together to build prosperous and healthy communities. To celebrate this milestone, they’ve launched the Let’s Open the Door global campaign—a massive effort to bring awareness to the worldwide housing crisis and rally people everywhere to take action. You can even go to www.Habitat.org to create your own personalized digital door and donate to help unlock safe, affordable housing worldwide.

Thinking back on our trip this past spring, I’m still struck by what our team of twelve from Iowa and Minnesota was able to accomplish in the Dominican Republic. Over the course of just one week, we poured seven concrete floors for families who had been living on bare dirt. It sounds like a simple change, but the impact is profound; replacing a dirt surface with concrete significantly reduces gastrointestinal and respiratory diseases and has a direct, positive effect on the cognitive development of children.

One of the college kids on our crew actually took the time to calculate exactly how much we mixed and poured in place. Between the cement, rock, sand, and water, we moved 64,000 pounds of concrete—all one wheelbarrow at a time! It was heavy, exhausting work, but seeing those families finally have a solid foundation under their feet made every single pound worth it.