OXFORD – As Chenango County Habitat for Humanity (CCHH) is in the midst of the 16th annual Red Carnation Sale, Jan. 4-24, they are also embarking on the selection process of choosing their fifth partnering family and build location. This formidable decision made the committee reflect on CCHH's whole reason for being as they remembered their first building project in Bainbridge years ago, and how it vastly changed the lives of a special family.

What is the point of Habitat, you may ask? You may be familiar with their tagline, to help families who “need a hand up rather than a hand out", but you may not know the full extent of what they do. Their mission is to eliminate poverty housing and revitalize communities. The interest free house loan is terrific too, but there’s something else that happens that can’t be promised and it isn’t exactly tangible.

With the partnering family’s invested time, the house provides a sense of pride in homeownership, it nurtures the family’s self-esteem, and helps provide stability. The house becomes a home. CCHH’s first family, Joan Di Chiara and her two children, William (now 25) and Bobbie Randel (24) can attest to that.

Joan and her kids got word that they were Habitat’s chosen family in Sept. of 1998. At the time, they were living in an apartment, and really needed a home. They were selected over three other applicants based on their level of need, willingness to partner, acceptance of responsibilities and ability to repay a no-interest mortgage.

At the start, Bobbie was 13 and William was almost 14; they both attended Bainbridge-Guilford school. It would be 2 ? years of hard work before the house would be finished, but this was time very well spent.