With the camaraderie and sense of community that old-fashioned barn-raisings once fostered, Island County Habitat for Humanity raised the walls of the organization’s tenth home.

Saturday, May 14, members of Habitat; community, church and Navy volunteers; and the family chosen for the Habitat home gathered to raise the new house’s walls.

“I’m excited! It’s starting to look like a house,” Oak Harbor resident Yasline Garcia said.

Garcia, along with her fiancee, Shannon Simpkins, and her daughter, Shaeline Colter, 11, will own the house after it is built. She said this will be her family’s first home.

Garcia said she and her fiancee attended an informational meeting in 2004, where they found out what they had to do to become applicants for a Habitat home. For the rest of last year and the early part of this year, Garcia said she and Simpkins had to fill out an application for a home, fill out tax information and allow committee members of Habitat for Humanity to asses their current living conditions and the level of need the family had.

“The committee decides who is in the biggest need,” Garcia said.

Going from what the Habitat for Humanity committee deemed unfit living conditions to having her own home has made Garcia happy and grateful.

“Habitat has just been a great and wonderful organization,” Garcia said. “It’s just like a great, big extended family. They’re so selfless.”

Sam Brown, the affiliate president for Island County Habitat for Humanity, said the organization is faith based, but anyone from all walks of life and any religion can apply for a Habitat home or volunteer with any of the Habitat projects.

“The organization is open to everyone,” she said.

Brown said house applicants have to fit three criteria. They must have a visible need for a change of living conditions; they must have the ability to pay their monthly mortgage payments, which cannot take more than 30 percent of the family’s income; and they must show willingness, intent and effort to partner with Habitat for Humanity at the present and in the future.

Brown said the hardest part of working with Habitat for Humanity is trying to decide between the needs of different families and finally making a decision on only one of them. She said currently Island County Habitat for Humanity can only build two houses a year, one on the north end of the island and one on the south end, and can only house two needy families per year.

“There are always more applicants than houses,” she said. “There is always a need for more.”

Brown said Island County Habitat for Humanity became an organization affiliate of the national Habitat for Humanity in 1998. She said the families for whom Habitat has provided houses pay back a 25 year, $75,000 interest free loan to the organization. In essence, Brown said they are only paying for building materials because the labor and land is donated.

“The proceeds go to the building of more homes,” Garcia said.

Brown said the organization hopes to have Garcia’s new home built in six months. She said for an all volunteer project that’s not a bad time frame.

Starting strong with approximately 35 volunteers, the group constructed the house’s frame and started to hammer up some of the walls during the wall-raising workday.

Brown said the Navy is also good about sending out volunteers when Habitat needs some extra hands.

Glenn Eckard, vice president of Island County Habitat for Humanity North Chapter and chair for the North Chapter’s church relations committee, said Habitat has never had a lack of volunteers for a wall raising.

As the walls went up, Betty Utt, an Oak Harbor resident and owner of a Habitat for Humanity home, said she is happy for Garcia and her family.

“I’m so excited for this new couple, and they’re so excited,” she said. “I know how they feel.”

Utt said that seeing the family watch their own home go up and knowing how much having a home has meant for her, she broke down crying earlier that morning.

“I know from talking to them, they had lost all hope of of ever owning on Whidbey Island until this opportunity opened up for them,” she said.

Utt said when a lot of people get together for a cause, much is accomplished — something, she said, for which she is grateful.

As the construction crew took a break for lunch, Eckard prayed that the group would stay “safe, happy and productive” as they worked to give another family a house to call “home.”