{"id":7700,"date":"2018-09-16T19:17:39","date_gmt":"2018-09-16T23:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/2018\/09\/19\/community-conservation-corps-benefits-greenville-homeowner\/"},"modified":"2022-11-06T18:51:06","modified_gmt":"2022-11-06T23:51:06","slug":"community-conservation-corps-benefits-greenville-homeowner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/community-conservation-corps-benefits-greenville-homeowner\/","title":{"rendered":"The power of partnership"},"content":{"rendered":"

Partnership packs a punch. Just ask Janine Griggs. Thanks to a group effort between Furman University\u2019s Community Conservation Corps<\/a> (CCC), Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County and Rebuild Upstate, Griggs\u2019 home in the city\u2019s Greater Sullivan neighborhood was recently rehabilitated and weatherized.<\/p>\n

The house, built in 1948, has been home to the Greenville native and her two children for the past 18 years. In 2013, Griggs was talking with her neighbor in the yard when the woman\u2019s pit bull attacked her. Her injuries, which required surgery and resulted in serious nerve damage to her right arm, forced the former certified nursing assistant to go on disability. \u201cThe attack altered my whole life,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

When the single mother on a fixed income realized her roof was leaking into her living room and bedroom, she contacted Hannah Dailey, program coordinator for Furman\u2019s David E. Shi Sustainability Center<\/a>, to ask for help from the CCC. She originally applied for weatherization of her home, but when the Community Conservation Corps came in to look at the house other necessary repairs were identified. That\u2019s where the other two organizations came in.<\/p>\n

Dailey was comparing notes with Rebuild Upstate<\/a>, a local nonprofit organization that repairs and improves existing homes for the elderly and disabled, when she found out they were also slated to work on Griggs\u2019 home.<\/p>\n

During a pre-audit of the house, Habitat Greenville<\/a>, which acts as a contractor and provides labor for Community Conservation Corps weatherization projects, noticed repairs it could contribute as part of its new Home Preservation Program. Turns out that Griggs\u2019 house, along with a group of others in the neighborhood, had been purchased and renovated by Habitat in the early 1990s. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t intentional in the beginning,\u201d Dailey recalls, \u201cbut it turned into an intentional project in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rebuild Upstate did its work first, replacing all the windows in April. The following month, Habitat repaired rotted subflooring throughout the home, did some minor electrical work, and, most significantly, replaced the roof and the HVAC system. Last, but hardly least, the CCC came in to do the weatherization.<\/p>\n

\u201cPartnerships are the name of the game for us in order to make the biggest impact for families,\u201d says Jennifer Faner, director of homeowner and community engagement for Habitat Greenville. \u201cTo provide all the things we were able to provide to this homeowner, it really sets her up to be safe and to be able to stay in her house.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griggs will also realize significant savings in her utility bills. At the beginning of the project, the duct system in her home had 10 percent air leakage. \u201cOur target is to reduce air leakage to 5 percent, but when we came back to this home we found only 1 percent leakage,\u201d Dailey reports. \u201cThat is amazing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s always going to be limited resources, and we\u2019re never going to be able to do as much as we want,\u201d adds Melanie Campbell, development specialist for Rebuild Upstate. \u201cBut if we can go in collaboratively, we\u2019re able to give the homeowner a more holistic repair experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Griggs certainly appreciates it. \u201cIt\u2019s been such a blessing having these three organizations be able to accommodate all my needs,\u201d Griggs exclaims. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m back in a brand-new house without having to worry about fixing anything!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Partnership packs a punch. Just ask Janine Griggs. Thanks to a group effort between Furman University\u2019s Community Conservation Corps (CCC), Habitat for Humanity of Greenville County and Rebuild Upstate, Griggs\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":7701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,18,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7700","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-centers-and-institutes","category-shi-institute-for-sustainable-communities","category-top-stories"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7700","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7700"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7700\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7700"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7700"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7700"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}