Clive Rainey, who has been a volunteer for Habitat for Humanity for 39 years, visits a construction site for a Habitat home in the Villages at Alton Park on Thursday, Apr. 7, 2016, in Chattanooga, Tenn. Retiree Bill Honeycutt has helped Habitat for Humanity build homes in Chattanooga since 1992, along with other volunteers from Rivermont Presbyterian Church in Hixson.
“It’s almost like a bunch of buddies that get together every Thursday. We get along great. We go to lunch together,” Honeycutt said Thursday as he and fellow church members put Hardie board siding on a house under construction in The Villages in Alton Park. “You know you’re helping somebody.”
“Most of us are in our 70s or 80s,” added Honeycutt, 81, who tells a funny story about a church member in his 70s who fell off a ladder – but wasn’t hurt.
When the man got home, his wife told him to get one of the younger guys to go up the ladder.
“He said, ‘I am the youngest,'” Honeycutt said.
Habitat for Humanity of Greater Chattanooga Area has built 258 homes to house more than 1,000 people since it was founded in 1986.
The nonprofit organization marks its 30th anniversary tonight with a gala and silent auction at The Chattanoogan hotel featuring a speech by Clive Rainey, who in 1977 became Habitat for Humanity International’s first volunteer.
“In every [Habitat] affiliate in the United States, for sure, you would find volunteers in their 70s and 80s,” Rainey, who’s about to turn 70, said Thursday at the Alton Park building site.
“Any Habitat volunteer will tell you they get more than they give,” said Rainey, citing a sense of purpose and learning construction skills as reasons to volunteer.
Rainey is credited with bringing the concept of “sweat equity,” or having families contribute labor in the building of Habitat homes. It’s a key part of every Habitat home built in 80 countries. Families must contribute 350 hours of work for a Habitat home or store to move into a Chattanooga-area Habitat home.
Habitat’s goal is to eliminate substandard housing worldwide.
Rainey has traveled the world to help build Habitat homes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Uganda and Guatemala, where he lives.
Now retired from his paid role at Habitat, Rainey plans to remain involved with Habitat Guatemala for the rest of his life and with a ministry that rescues homeless children from Guatemala’s streets.
Rainey lived in the Americus, Ga., area when Habitat was founded there in 1976 by Millard Fuller as a worldwide Christian housing ministry.
The song “If I Had a Hammer,” was popular then, Rainey said.
“The genius of Millard is he took the ‘if’ out of it,” he said, looking around the Alton Park neighborhood full of new homes. “Handing people a hammer and putting them to work has rebuilt this neighborhood.”
Contact staff writer Tim Omarzu at tomarzu@timesfreepress.com or www.facebook.com/MeetsForBusiness or twitter.com/meetforbusiness or 423-757-6651.