This is a current view of Brandy’s home.

Brandy Willis, 2024

Brandy Willis is a LC-Valley Habitat Homeowner who shared about her experience with the Lewis Clark Habitat for Humanity.

“The first time I went through the process, I had too much debt so I was declined,” Brandy said. “But the people said don’t give up so I worked to pay stuff off and met qualifications. We had already had several meetings and they had come into our house to see our environment. I remember they called and told me that they had just one more meeting with a couple more questions but really it was just the board coming with the balloons to congratulate me, so that was really cool.”

Brandy’s home as it was finished.

Brandy remembers that there were some struggles with the property so it took 2 years for her home to be finished.

“It was quite a process but it was cool because I helped build 4 other houses with Habitat,” she said. “As a single mom or two adult families, you have to put in 500 hours of sweat equity but I ended up having over 2,000 hours by the time my house was done. I really had a great time and there were some great volunteers, including the retired guys who put in their efforts.”

Brandy is shown here with her children on the day she received news of acceptance as a Habitat for Humanity homeowner.

A funny memory Brandy had was the retired men let her work before lunch at pulling nails and after lunch they showed her an easier way to pull nails “now that you’re going to stay and work. I had no knowledge when I started, but they were a great bunch of people.”

She put her sweat equity in on the actual home sites. “I wanted to be close to the homeowners,” she said.

Jim Cooper, the construction supervisor at the time, said he remembers many businesses donating items to help inthe building process “There were a lot of people who were donating things to us that you didn’t know about.”

Here is a 2024 photo of Brandy with 3 of her 4 grandkids.

Brandy’s home has a basement and stairs. Jim said the original plans had some concrete work included and a donation was made to lay a full concrete floor.

Jim said getting volunteers to help was both challenging and rewarding.

“One guy had a plan that was what he thought it should be but that was not what the plan showed that we had to work with,” Jim explained.

Some of the best times he had with volunteers from Timberline High School. “They came and helped with a few houses and they were a lot of fun to work with. One of student’s dad’s was a contractor, so he was good to go to work right away.”

Brandy is now a full-time student while working full time. She said she’s just excited that the program is still going. For anyone interested in applying for a Habitat home, she wishes them lots of luck.

“It was a great experience,” she concluded.  “I only have one child left still living at home. I raised the kids and one has graduated from college and they’ve now moved on, so now it’s my turn to go back to school.”