 York Habitat for Humanity presented nine awards to this year’s nominated Habitat Heroes. These are individuals and organizations who have not only gone above and beyond supporting York Habitat for Humanity in some capacity over the years, but they also support multiple organizations throughout York County.
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 After being evicted from her home following a cancer diagnosis, Jennifer Montalvo needed a more secure living situation for her and her children. She turned to York Habitat for Humanity. Jennifer Montalvo was raising two foster care children and two of her own when she received the diagnosis. She had stage IV Hodgkin’s lymphoma.
This wasn’t Jennifer’s first fight against cancer. Her oldest son recently had finished treatment for leukemia. The family barely had recovered from his weekly trips to Philadelphia for care. Through nine months of intensive chemotherapy, Jennifer lost not only her hair but her job. She was recovering when a late rental payment landed the sheriff on the doorstep of her four-bedroom house. “He’s like, ‘Hey, you gotta go,’” Jennifer says, “and I’m like, ‘where?’”  Lori Wise began helping at Habitat for Humanity home sites while in her 20s. Now she helps applicants delve into budgeting and finances as they embark on home ownership. Lori Wise walked through a small York City apartment with one of her York Health Corporation’s social services clients. It was the 1990s, and city apartments were hard to come by.
A bare electric wire dangled above where a dining room table was supposed to be, a single bulb attached to it. An icy breeze cut through the room, streaming in from the edges of the drafty ancient windows. The refrigerator and stove were so old that Lori wasn’t sure they worked. A postage stamp-sized countertop between them offered little space to create a meal for a family. At $1,200 a month, the rent for the two-bedroom apartment was well above what Lori was paying for her mortgage, and the rent didn’t even include utilities. “The things I saw in York were horrific,” Lori says. “Habitat is a way, to take what I have seen, and how bad it is, and to know that there is something that can be done.”  David Hummer didn’t think he’d ever have his own home until he learned about Habitat’s Veteran Home-ownership Program. Happy-go-lucky Chihuahua mix Balthazar is the first face visitors see at David Hummer’s York Habitat for Humanity home. Tail wagging, he grabs his taco squeaky toy and begs to play.
“It means the world to me,” David says of owning a home. “I get to have this little guy here.” In 2018, David felt that he was out of options. As a disabled veteran, he couldn’t discern any path to home ownership. Then, he happened to see a feature on WPMT-FOX43 about the York Habitat for Humanity Veteran Home-ownership Program. The next day he began filling out his application.  Raising four children alone and with a young son who recently underwent a lifesaving kidney transplant, Amanda Hilsher has faced her share of trials. She had hoped to settle in to her York Habitat for Humanity home by Christmastime, but delayed state funding put that plan on hold.
For Amanda Hilsher, as with many single parents, the challenges of making ends meet and providing a safe and comfortable space for her four children have become increasingly difficult. Rising rents eat up an ever-increasing portion of her income. “It’s very expensive to live,” she says, “and we currently rent, so every year our rent goes up. It’s to the point now where it’s like I can’t afford to live there anymore.” Amanda learned about York Habitat for Humanity’s home-ownership program through a friend who successfully had gone through the process in another county. She decided to give it a try, hoping to secure a stable and affordable home for her family. 
Since the nonprofit housing organization launched locally in 1985, volunteers Jane and Nelson Dodson have contributed time, energy, and finances to help families become homeowners.
As a teacher at York Country Day School, Jane Dodson oversaw volunteer opportunities for her students. A longtime proponent of York Habitat for Humanity, she arranged to have the students help at a Red Lion home construction site. Covered in dust, the students learned about hard work and sweat equity.
Years later, Jane and her husband, Nelson, also a now-retired teacher who spent years teaching at William Penn, and a diehard York Habitat volunteer, walked onto a worksite in York. There stood one of Jane’s former students, now married and working alongside his wife to fix up their own York Habitat home. “We got to work with him on his house, knowing we had planted the seed all those years ago,” Jane says. That wasn’t the end of the story, though. Much later, when the former student had achieved financial success, he donated the house back to York Habitat for Humanity. “I get goosebumps when I tell that story,” Jane says.  With no place to live at age 19, Judy Aguero turned to the organization and set out on a path that would transform her family’s future. Judy Aguero was just 19 and pregnant with her first daughter, living in a women’s shelter in York. Not sure where to turn, she picked up a pamphlet that listed local resources and learned about York Habitat for Humanity. She decided to apply for the organization’s home-ownership program.
Judy’s application was denied. York Habitat shared with her ways she could be in a better position to enter the program. Not one to give up easily, she applied the next year. That application also was denied. As her circumstances shifted, she applied year after year, facing the disappointment of denial each time. But she never gave up and neither did York Habitat. Together, they helped create a path for her to pursue her dream and make homeownership a reality.  With the support of the nonprofit organization, Maggie Villafane not only helped rehabilitate homes for others but built the foundation for a better future for herself and her family.
Born and raised in York, Maggie Villafane always had rented. Repeatedly moving from apartment to apartment, the prospect of owning a home seemed unrealistic. In 2012, with a new baby and hoping for a better future for her family, Maggie turned to York Habitat for Humanity. "I saw it as the perfect opportunity to have our first home,” she says. “I think if we would have gone the traditional route, I felt like we wouldn’t have been able to afford it."  Celia Serrano used York Habitat for Humanity’s home-ownership program and the lessons it taught to help grow her assets and change her family’s future. In 2009, Celia Serrano and her nearly adult children moved from Arizona to York to be with her, now, husband , hoping to find stability and a place to call home.
Having both previously lived in New York City, she and her husband longed to have a house of their own. After exploring options for buying a home, Celia saw that York Habitat for Humanity’s home-ownership program offered the best path forward. “Once I came here and got settled down and started working, I looked into the program and to see if we were eligible, and we were,” Celia says. The application process began in 2013, and after months of navigating credit checks and paperwork with her York Habitat for Humanity coach, Celia and her family were approved to become owners of a Habitat home.  Keith and Libby Shaub purchased their house in 2001. In 2019, they made their final payment and reveled in being mortgage-free homeowners. With raised glasses of sparkling cider, Keith and Libby Shaub of York celebrated paying off their York Habitat for Humanity home in 2019. It was the completion of a journey that had started nearly two decades before.
Living in a claustrophobic apartment after their marriage in 1999, Keith and Libby knew they needed more space. “We had a daybed with a trundle that was underneath the bed,” Keith says. “When we put it up, I couldn't get out of bed, it was so tight. The rooms were real small.” They didn’t think they’d ever be able to buy a home until they learned about York Habitat for Humanity’s home ownership program. |