Adjo and Komlan and their two young children attend a dedication ceremony on Thursday, Dec. 19, welcoming them to their new home at 408 E. Eighth St., Davenport. The young couple’s home is the 140th home built in the region by Habitat for Humanity Quad Cities. CREDIT DAVE THOMPSON
There’s a framed dedication prayer inside a new Habitat for Humanity Quad Cities home at 408 E. Eighth St., Davenport, that shares a welcoming message to the home’s new owners. Part of that message reads: “We dedicate this house to the reverence of all good things; to that which is true and wholesome … to […]
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There’s a framed dedication prayer inside a new Habitat for Humanity Quad Cities home at 408 E. Eighth St., Davenport, that shares a welcoming message to the home’s new owners.Part of that message reads: “We dedicate this house to the reverence of all good things; to that which is true and wholesome … to the beauty of simple, good and useful living … to good deeds, good thoughts and kind ministries of hands and heart.”
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Habitat for Humanity Quad Cities volunteers look over the living room area for a new home built at 408 E. Eighth St., Davenport. CREDIT DAVE THOMPSON
This is one of the quilts presented to the family on Thursday.
Emmanuel Hayford, left, shakes hands with Komlan during the dedication ceremony.
This home at 408 E. Eighth St., Davenport, is the 140th home built by Habitat for Humanity Quad Cities in the region. CREDIT DAVE THOMPSON
This is the kitchen in the new home at 408 E. 8th St.
Shannon Panjwani shows a framed dedication prayer inside a new Habitat for Humanity Quad Cities home at 408 E. Eighth St., Davenport.
Komlan smiles as he looks over his family’s new Habitat for Humanity home built at 408 E. Eighth St., Davenport. The house marks the 140th built by Habitat for Humanity Quad Cities. CREDIT DAVE THOMPSON
About 40 community members gathered inside that home on Thursday morning, Dec.19, to honor the good deeds, good thoughts and a lot of hard work that created the home. All that work led to the completion of Habitat’s 140th home in the QC region. The latest home is located close to downtown Davenport on what had been a vacant lot near the intersection of Iowa and East Eighth streets.
House now a home
That one-story house – in the works for about eight months – is now home to a family that relocated to the Quad Cities from the African country of Togo. That family is Komlan and Adjo and their two young children. (Habitat leaders declined to give the family’s last name to help protect their privacy, said Zach Currier, volunteer/family services coordinator for the local Habitat affiliate.)“I want to thank everybody for their time and talent to make this possible,” Komlan said during the dedication.That ceremony was held to welcome the family to the home, and to thank the many sponsors and volunteers who put in many hours of work to complete the new home. “We really have the best volunteers in the world,” said Mr. Currier.One of those volunteer construction leaders is Jimmie Clifford, who helped coordinate much of the work on the new central Davenport home.Ahead of Thursday’s ceremony, Mr. Clifford gave the Quad Cities Regional Business Journal a tour of the new home.“I’ve been to a lot of these homes and I’m telling you this is a very practical floor plan,” he said.Mr. Clifford added that it was a pleasure to work with Komlan, who put in many hours of “sweat equity” to build the new home for the family. He called him a skilled and hard worker.
New home at a glance
Some of the features of the new home and Habitat’s program include:
The one-story house has about 1,100 square feet of space with an open floor plan, three bedrooms and one bathroom. The main bedroom has a small walk-in closet.
The home has new kitchen appliances including an electric stove and refrigerator.
Its full basement features a laundry room with a new washer and dryer. The basement also has space that could be used for two additional bedrooms.
The new house is located on a large lot with big yards on the side and rear. The backyard also features a shed and a vehicle parking area.
Construction began last spring and was completed in early December.
In-kind donors for the project included: Comfort Concepts QCA; Cree (for light bulbs); Baecke Appraisers; Hy-Vee; Ryan Weber, an attorney with Gomez May LLP; Schneider Electric/Square D; Sherwin-Williams; Steve’s Mirror & Glass; Whirlpool Corp.; and Klingner & Associates, PC.
Habitat touts its affordable homeownership program as a long-term solution to the current affordable housing crisis. Habitat partner families must complete a minimum of 250 volunteer hours of sweat equity and attend mandatory homeownership preparation classes with the support of a volunteer mentor. During Thursday’s ceremony, Tom Fisher-King, CEO of Habitat for Humanity Quad Cities, said it costs about $172,000 to build a home in the region.
Habitat for Humanity Quad Cities is dedicated to building thriving communities. For more than 30 years, the local affiliate has served low-income families with the construction of affordable homes. Habitat also operates a home repair program and an accessibility ramp program for low-income homeowners.
Habitat friends bring gifts
In addition to thanking the volunteers and business sponsors, the dedication also was a time of gift giving. Komlan, Adjo and their two children received several gifts to welcome them to their home and the neighborhood. The included two boxes of house-warming gifts from Hy-Vee; a Bible; a ceremonial key to the home; an Isabel Bloom sculpture; three quilts; and a framed prayer that was first created for another new home decades ago.That framed prayer was presented to the family by Shannon Panjwani, a Habitat volunteer and the family’s mentor. The dedication is dated May 14, 1978, and originally made for the Panjwani family home in New Jersey, according to the document. Ms. Panjwani, who now resides in the Quad Cities, said she had the document framed and wanted to give it new life with a new family.‘It’s been such a joy to partner with them,” she added.A portion of that poem reads: “May all who share the hospitality of these walls and these rooms grow in mind, in spirit, in true joy, so that the overflow of their abundance may bless and help all who come near.”
