60 women construct Gypsum homes through Habitat for Humanity Women Build days

On Thursday and Friday, around 60 women picked up circle saws, nail guns and paintbrushes and got to work. The women — engaged community members and business leaders — were helping build homes in Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley’s Stratton Flats project as part of Women Build Day.

Women Build Day, a Habitat for Humanity International program, celebrates female leaders community-wide and is an opportunity for “women (to come) together to remove those barriers to homeownership,” said Elyse Howard, Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley’s vice president of community affairs & philanthropy “Habitat’s mission is really about removing barriers to homeownership and making it more accessible and affordable.”

At Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley, the construction lead team is predominantly female.

“I like to joke that every day at Habitat is a Women Build Day,” McKenna said. “We have an awesome, small but mighty, team of crew leaders and project managers like myself, and we are a majority women staff.”

Last week’s Women Build Days were the first Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley has hosted since 2019.

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“We’re really excited to have it back for the first time since COVID,” Howard said.

The Women Build day volunteers brought a range of backgrounds and experience to the work, but all arrived with an open mind and a commitment to doing the work right.

“(It is) just so exciting to see so many women in our community that are interested and excited to learn new skills and participate in Habitat’s mission and that feel comfortable walking around a jobsite when not every jobsite is welcoming to women,” said Kelsie McKenna, Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley’s construction project manager. “Our biggest goal is learning and teaching and making people feel empowered to come back at the end of the day.”

Sarah Dorman, a multi-time Habitat for Humanity volunteer, took part in Women Build day through her employer, Land Title Guarantee Company.

The work is “empowering” and also “necessary,” due to the high cost of housing in Eagle County, Dorman said. As an added bonus, during Women Build Day, “it’s super fun to be around women.”

Women building homes for women

“Female heads of household face a lot more barriers to homeownership than their male counterparts,” Howard said.

Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley addresses that discrepancy by helping women become homeowners. 70% of the organization’s 146 homeowners are female heads of household.

One new Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley homeowner, Jazmin Trias, shared some of her story.

“As a foreigner, a single mother, and someone who has worked hard to build a life in a new country to create a better future for my children, this moment feels like a quiet victory after years of perseverance,” Trias said. “This opportunity means safety. It means my children can grow up and come back to a stable home, surrounded by love and the chance to dream big.”

Habitat’s work in Stratton Flats nears completion

Habitat’s work in Stratton Flats is “almost complete,” Howard said.

“This is an awesome neighborhood, and it’s mixed-income and mixed housing types, and it’s really a model of what good community housing should look like,” Howard said. “We’re proud to have been here, and I think we’re a little sad, in a way, because we’re almost done.”

Construction is nearing completion on the last of 72 homes out of Habitat’s 76 plots.

Since 2011, when Habitat began working on the site, Howard said she has seen the community grow from “tumbleweeds” to a “vibrant” community full of families. 

“A lot of these kids, I knew them when they were little, before, and now they’re in high school or out,” Howard said. “They were able to stay, and they were able to thrive. That’s the whole point of this work.”

Why volunteering with Habitat matters

Volunteer labor is a key element to how Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley makes homeownership possible.

“Every dollar that we don’t spend is making the mortgage more affordable for the family,” Howard said.

“Habitat homes appraise around $600,000 per unit, and we’re able to sell them to our families around $350,000, so a lot goes into that gap,” McKenna said. “That’s our partners such as our subcontractors donating skilled labor, our material providers providing things like free windows and doors, and then it also comes down to our volunteers providing free volunteer work and helping us bring down the cost that we have to pay other subcontractors.”

Habitat for Humanity Vail Valley pulls from many pools of labor: The future homeowners, through Habitat’s sweat equity requirement, AmeriCorps volunteers, community members and more.

“We’re so excited to have these as permanently affordable homes in our community, so even if this family were to move on, the value of that volunteer hour and the donor dollar stays with the Habitat house for its lifetime in Eagle County,” McKenna said.