The Volunteering Page of Marcia Biggie

Thank you for volunteering for this build! Your efforts will help the Barnes Family with their dream of owning a safe, decent, and affordable home. We look forward to having you out on the work site. We promise your volunteer experience will be fun! Get to know the Barnes Family. Read their bio below.

FAMILY AND CURRENT HOUSING

Teleatha Barnes applied for the homeownership program to provide her family with a permanent, safe, and stable place that they can call home for years to come. Over the past years, Teleatha and her three daughters have frequently moved between living with friends, family, and private rental properties due to overcrowding, high rent, structural problems, and life circumstances that prevented the family from achieving stability. At the time of application, Teleatha and the girls were living in a private rental that had several issues including faulty electrical outlets, difficulty heating the large, old home, and issues with the landlord not making necessary repairs and using the home to store his personal belongings. As a result, Teleatha moved into her mother’s basement and the family is now in an overcrowded, temporary living situation. Teleatha is excited to be moving forward with becoming a homeowner and providing a place where her daughters, Taliyah, Janay, and Jayla can live and grow comfortably. Taliyah is eleven and is currently excelling as a student at Early College Academy where her favorite subject is science. Six year old Janay is also very smart and Teleatha jokingly said she often forgets how young Janay is because she acts so much like a young lady. Jayla is the baby of the family at four years old and brings much joy and humor to her family as a little comedian.

A BRIGHT FUTURE

Teleatha recently selected a lot in northeast Canton and is eager for work to begin on her future home. Teleatha has been busy completing sweat equity requirements at Habitat for Humanity ReStore and on the homes of other partner families, learning construction tasks like applying blue board, hanging siding, and painting. Teleatha has also completed the House2Home education series where she learned skills to succeed financially and in her personal life. She especially enjoyed the Homeowner Maintenance Education class designed to help future homeowners learn how to best care for their new home. “I liked that [this class] was hands on,” Teleatha said, “because I learned things through doing it with my own hands.” In addition to raising her children and completing the Habitat sweat equity requirements each week, Teleatha has worked hard to provide for her family as a customer service representative at Time Warner Cable for the last eleven years. Soon, all of Teleatha’s efforts and hard work will pay off as she achieves her dream of becoming a homeowner. “This is going to be our first home,” Teleatha said, “and it will be a real blessing for us.”