Join us on Sunday afternoon, July 12, for a picnic to celebrate and support the special way Habitat helps people achieve the dream of every family:  home ownership.  Shelburne Farms is the perfect setting for a picnic. Cooks and chefs grille up lots of delicious food for your pleasure.  Kids and adults will have a great time playing games along the shores of Lake Champlain.  Badminton, croquet, and many other family games will be enjoyed.  Hear live music: sing and sway to the great music of the recent decades.

Tickets are only $10 per person, and $25 for a family. Please come to have a great time and support Habitat. Call the Habitat office (802) 872-8726 to reserve your tickets, or for more information today. The Green Mountain Community Picnic is under written by our premier sponsor Shearer Chevrolet and our media sponsor radio station Star 92.9.

By Sarah Zobel - This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

Live music, good food, croquet, badminton, games for kids . . . it could only be the 2009 Green Mountain Habitat for Humanity Community Picnic! This fun-filled event is open to the public and will take place at Shelburne Farms on Sunday, July 12. Festivities will begin at 3:00 p.m.; food will be served from 5:00 p.m. on.

Chefs from the New England Culinary Institute will be on hand to prepare a delicious meal of hamburgers, hot dogs, a variety of salads, and other BBQ treats. After you’ve had your fill of all that good food, work it off with a game of badminton, a round of croquet, or a little Frisbee tossing. And for the truly younger members of the crowd, there will be plenty of age-appropriate games to keep them moving.

In the days leading up to Mother’s Day 2009, more than 7,000 women volunteers, including recording artist Trisha Yearwood, pounded nails and raised walls at more than 200 Habitat for Humanity construction sites throughout the United States. The pre-Mother’s Day activities were part of Habitat’s second annual National Women Build Week, May 2–10, sponsored by Lowe’s.

By Ellen Kane

Sixty-one (61) percent of Vermonters could not afford to purchase a home in Vermont today. According to the Between a Rock and A Hard Place, Housing and Wages in Vermont, 2009 Update, the median purchase price of a home in Vermont is $200,000 -- a 100 percent increase since 1996, requiring an income of $63,000.  Yet the median income for all Vermont’s households is $51,566. 

“There’s a lack of resources at both the federal and state levels,” said Erhard Mahnke, Coordinator of the Vermont Affordable Housing Coalition.  “We’re coming out of an era that has been bad for housing.  Federal commitment since the 1970s has seriously diminished.”  Attempts to dismantle both Section 8 rental assistance funds and Block Grant dollars over the last eight years have constituted a barrier to developing new affordable housing.  Housing agencies and nonprofits are struggling to maintain current subsidies for clients already housed.