Habitat for Humanity held its first Playhouse Build-a-Thon in Carpinteria Saturday, and the resulting play structures will be given to nonprofit day care centers in the community. 

The Build-a-Thon at St. Joseph’s Church was a fundraiser for the Sawyer Project Build, which will build three homes for Carpinteria families.

Each team that signed up for the Build-a-Thon donated about $1,000 toward the Sawyer Project Build, said Jessica Lucas, an Americorps Vista member at Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County. 

Habitat for Humanity has chapters all over the country and builds homes for low-income families who work alongside volunteers and staff to build the home. Habitat then sells the homes to the families for an affordable mortgage.

“I want to help people stay in their homes who are low-income,” said Kathleen Bauer, a Build-a-Thon volunteer and St. Joseph’s congregation member.

“This party from Catholic Ministries, who go take communion out to the homes — we see some people are living in homes that are substandard and they need help. And then Father (Richard) Martini was approached to have the facility build the playhouse so that’s how this church got involved. So it’s the whole community coming together.”

Habitat for Humanity of Southern Santa Barbara County also runs the ReStore in Goleta, a home improvement center.

They accept donations of building material, furniture, appliances, and sell that back out to the public and all the proceeds from the store go to Habitat programs. 

— Noozhawk intern Julia Lee can be reached at news@noozhawk.com. Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.