Women Build’s mission is to empower women to take action against poverty housing conditions. The more people we can train to become effective volunteers, the better equipped we will be to fight poverty housing. Women Build brings together women from all walks of life to address, in a concrete way, the housing crisis facing millions of women and children across the globe.

 

Here in Frederick County, Habitat for Humanity’s Women Build program is ideal for women who want to learn construction skills while building homes and communities.  Our Women Build program brings together women from all walks of life to address locally the housing crisis facing women here in Frederick County.  Best of all, no experience is necessary!

 

Women Build is not about excluding men. It is about including women and opening new doors of opportunity. Men are often involved in our training programs and build projects in supportive roles and as subcontractors when women from the necessary trades are not available.

 

​The Women Build program is co-sponsored by Lowe’s, which offers “how-to” clinics for the volunteers.  These free clinics offer women a hands-on experience in basic construction techniques, enabling them to become more effective in their building efforts.  As part of their major partnership with Habitat, Lowe’s has contributed nearly $40 million to Habitat’s work.  Their support also includes grant programs and project funding.

 

The first Women Build home was built in 1991. Then, as part of the Jimmy Carter Work Project in 1997, then First Lady Hillary Clinton, Kentucky’s first lady, Libby Jones, and Oklahoma’s first lady, Cathy Keating, all participated in Women Build projects.  The initiative became an official Habitat program in 1998. Since then, women volunteers have constructed more than 2,400 homes around the world.

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Here in Frederick County, our first Women Build project took place in 2011, when we built a home on Madison Street. Our Women Build volunteers have also been active in our repair and revitalization projects during National Women Build Week, which takes place each spring.  Our Women Build committee is now actively working on a home build project, which broke ground on October 5, 2016 in Brunswick, MD.