With the weather finally coming around, everyone wants to get out, get into the dirt and create something beautiful for many to enjoy. This exactly what a group of volunteers from Liberty Mutual Insurance did on Friday afternoon.
The group cleaned and beautified the exterior of the future home of Neighbors Place. Neighbors Place will be a residence for women with low incomes. There will be apartments inside the facility in which the women can live and get themselves back on their feet. This is an initiative headed by Project Neighbors, a nonprofit organization that provides affordable housing for low income families.
"The volunteers are tearing out some old vegetation and putting in some new plants and doing some exterior work,"Michele Nix, Office Manager for Project Neighbors said. "It's a community project and makes the community look nice...and we want people to have a pretty place to call home."
Project Neighbors addresses issues of race, class, and poverty. Their goal is to build healthy families and neighborhoods that welcomes diversity of all kinds.
This isn't the first project that Project Neighbors has undertaken.They have been part of the development of Hilltop Neighborhood House, Healthlinc, and Neighborhood Educational Opportunities (NEO). They are also the sponsor of 98.3 WVLP community Valparaiso's own radio station.
"Project Neighbors has been around for about 40 years,"Paul Schreiner, Executive Director of Project Neighbors said. "This project feel in our lap when Healthlink moved to Sturdy road and this building became vacant. So we bought it from Healthlinc and we are converting it into 18 small apartments fro single women."
The reason for the exterior work is that people are more likely to take pride in a beautiful home. Plus, it affects the surrounding community members who can appreciate a beautiful thing.
To find out more about Project Neighbors, find them on Facebook and check out their website!