By CHRISTOPHER SMITH

Habitat for Humanity is now in the fundraising process to be able to meet its goal of building one new house each year. The group will need to raise $25,000 to $30,000 to add an eighth house next year.

Habitat’s vision is of a world where everyone has a decent place to live. Habitat works toward this vision by building and improving homes in partnership with individuals and families in need of a decent and affordable place to live.

“We have worked really hard on making people’s dreams come true by giving them their own house,” Covington County Habitat organizer Dale Pancake said. “ So far we have built seven houses since 2009 and are shooting for one house a year.”

The houses Habitat builds are not free of charge to the occupants who become owners, Pancake explained. The group works with individual, civic and church donations, but Habitat families make affordable, zero-percent interest mortgage payments to the organization, which in turn uses the funds to build more houses.

In addition to a mortgage payment, each Habitat family has to put in 300 hours of sweat equity either on their own house or somebody else’s Habitat house.

“This gives them a sense of ownership and pride about their new home,” Pancake said. “They feel like they have put the sweat and tears into their own house.”

This fall, the group completed a home for Stacy Mulkey in Florala.

Contributions can be mailed to Habitat for Humanity of Covington County, P.O. Box 1034, Andalusia, AL 36420.