Thursday, July 24, 2014YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio -- The affiliates of Habitat for Humanity in Mahoning and Trumbull counties will merge within the next two to six months, says Monica Craven, executive director of Habitat for Humanity of Mahoning County.
“The Mahoning County Habitat has had a lot of success with homebuilding. Trumbull has been an all-volunteer operation that's struggled to build as many houses or serve as many families,” she explains. “We came together and talked about how we might do better together than separately.”
Craven expects that the two chapters will work “seamlessly” within 18 months.
“With the organization that we have here in Mahoning County, there will be a similar organization up in Trumbull County,” she adds. “Hopefully we'll open a ReStore [a secondhand store run by Habitat], we'll have an office up there and we'll be building houses in both counties, serving twice as many families.”
In a press release issued Wednesday, the president of the Trumbull affiliate, Brian Byrne, said that merging will strengthen the program to build houses for low-income families.
“We were looking for a way to build a stronger organization to build some more resources and share administrative costs,” he said, “and we felt like the Mahoning affiliate would be a good fit because they are a great organization.”
The name may change to reflect the affiliates uniting, Craven says, but at present, she is unsure of what that name would be. If the name changes, it will require approval from the national organization.
“We're really excited about the opportunity,” Craven says. “We've already met a lot of wonderful folks in Trumbull County and we think that it will be great for both counties.”
Copyright 2014 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
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