During this year’s Pride Build, Habitat SKKC invited local members of the LGBTQ+ community and allies to donate time and resources to our affordable homeownership programs and support our LGBTQ+ homeowners.
During this year’s Pride Build, which ran from June 17-27, 94 individual and corporate volunteers worked onsite at our Riverbend Comunidad and Yarrow Townhomes construction sites, both in the South Park neighborhood of Seattle, as well as at our Habitat Workshop space in Kent. Volunteers donated over 650 hours of service.
In addition to individual build days, we welcomed three sponsor groups: Amazon, Gen Cap, and Redfin/Rocket.
“We want to support the community at any point in time, but especially right now, it’s a pretty scary time to be queer out in the world. And I think it’s important for those of us who have a certain amount of privilege to give back and make sure that we’re passing it on and helping those in the community that might not have as many resources as we do. As corporate Amazon employees, we can take this time off to come and do this,” said Roxanne Grantham, HCLS Global Account Manager at Amazon.
Roxanne organizes volunteer participation for Glamazon, the LGBTQ+ affinity group for Amazon and AWS. They participate in volunteer opportunities like Pride Build. They also host happy hours and networking events and provide general support and community for anyone at Amazon that is a part of the LGBTQ+ community or wants to support the community.
For their second year volunteering with Pride Build, the Glamazons visited the Habitat Workshop to build and paint special Pride flag planter boxes. As for whether she learned any new skills at this year’s Pride Build, Roxanne joked, “I’ve learned that I’m really bad at taping in a straight line, which is maybe not ironic for today.” Standing in a sea of rainbow-painted planter boxes in various states of finish, she added, “It’s really fun to do something a little bit more whimsical.”
Over at the Yarrow Townhomes construction site, the team from Redfin and Rocket took on tasks ranging from installing subfloors, joists, and beams to framing exterior and interior walls.
“Our team members at Rocket and Redfin are always excited and proud to volunteer with organizations like Habitat for Humanity,” said Bryan Beran-Miceli, Senior Director of Volunteer Engagement and Giving at Rocket Community Fund. “Our company’s mission is to ‘Help Everyone Home’ and this Pride Build was a wonderful reminder of how important that mission is.”
The two-week affinity build ended with a celebratory flare as Habitat SKKC marched in the annual Seattle Pride Parade on Sunday, June 28. Habitat SKKC staff members, volunteers, and community members joined another 250+ organizations to show support for LGBTQ+ rights.
Throughout Pride Build, Habitat SKKC raised awareness of affordable homeownership’s role in building better communities where everyone feels included.