ONE HOME AT A TIME
'Every Dripping Springs neighbor has a safe and healthy place to live'
DRIPPING SPRINGS — A local nonprofit has been working for 12-plus years to ensure that the Dripping Springs community has safe and healthy housing.
Chuck Lemmond, a custom home builder, visited a widowed mother of five young children who had a frozen pipe and found the condition of her home to be unlivable. Instead of fixing the home, Lemmond was able to raise the funds with the help of members of the community to provide a new home for the family within a month or two.
Lemmond founded Hometown Missions, a faith-based nonprofit, in 2010. Since then, the team has completed more than 37 projects and impacted more than 100 neighbors in Dripping Springs.
“After the first victory, where we provided a home for a family, we continued to walk with that family,” Lemmond said in an online video. “We learned that there are other folks in same the situation in this town. We were able to purchase or receive a donation of some mobile homes and we repeated as best we could. Tear down something that no one should be living in, give them a better place to live and walk with them after that.”
The mission behind the nonprofit is to help neighbors in need.
“A lot of times, these are families, individuals or couples that, through no fault of their own, can’t handle the maintenance on a home anymore,” said Operations Manager Chris Kelker-Newlan, who is the first full-time employee at Hometown Missions. “Especially a mobile home, when it reaches that 40, 50 or 60-year life span, there’s really nothing you can do to fix it anymore. It’s dangerous at that point, to say the least.”
Kelker-Newlan said that Hometown Missions cannot do the work without its dedicated volunteers who show up to help others.
“[Volunteers help] almost everything we do as far as building homes, repairs or cleaning up a property. Maybe there is a lot of debris and the city says, ‘Hey, you need to clean that up’ and they don’t know what to do, they reach out to us,” he said. “We will get some volunteers out there and take care of that for you. Volunteers are hands-down very, very important. We can’t do what we do without volunteers.”
He added that people who want to contribute to the organization can also do so by donating or if they know someone who is struggling and need help, they can provide Hometown Missions with their contact information.
“Hometown Missions wants to be more than just fixing the home. There are a lot of times [where] because the home has reached that point, this individual or family is isolated and they don’t feel any part of the community,” Kelker-Newlan said. “We walk alongside them so that they do hopefully get a sense of community again and that sometimes takes on other facets as far as mental health, a job or family dynamics. That may not be in our wheelhouse, but we partner with other nonprofits so those doors open and then, ultimately, the goal is to inspire hope.”
For more information about the organization or how you can help, visit www.hometownmissions.org.
