SNOQUALMIE _ Sometimes in the process of helping others, an

organization needs a little help of its own.

Habitat for Humanity of East King County is looking for volunteers

to help organize and promote its “blitz build” project, which is scheduled

to begin in August 2001 near Snoqualmie Ridge. In two weeks, more than

700 volunteers from the Valley and across the country will construct 20

homes on 50 acres of land for medium- to low-income families. In all, 50

homes will be built at the site, which was donated by Weyerhaeuser to

Habitat for Humanity.

“It is going to be one of the largest volunteer activities that we’ve seen

in the Northwest for a long time,” said Tom Donnelly, planning

coordinator with Redmond-based Habitat for Humanity of East King County.

Those 700 volunteers are just the start. More will be needed to

support those hammering away at the homes by supplying such things as food,

first aid and transportation.

And then there are the committees. In addition to a steering

committee, seven other groups will be responsible for overseeing the project, and

they, too, need volunteers.

They include a construction committee, which will oversee the

labor, materials and plans used to build the home; a volunteer committee,

in charge of organizing volunteers; a family partner committee, which

will work with Habitat for Humanity homeowners; a project support

committee, that will oversee food, first aid, sanitation, transportation,

communication and security; an administration committee, which will handle

accounting and insurance; a program-development committee, in charge

of funding, solicitations and contributions; and a special-events

committee, that will conduct marketing and advertising campaigns and provide

community and media relations.

Donnelly is hoping local residents will want to be a part of these

committees since the project is located close to home. There is no set

number of hours volunteers must serve on the committees, and they can work

according to what their schedules allow.

“We’re going into the [Snoqualmie] community to see if

we can find as many resources as possible so that we can pretty much have

the community do this [blitz build] for themselves,” he said.

“We want to tap into those same people and use their knowledge

and resources and contacts to help structure this and organize it and

promote it.” He said one possibility is

teaming up with local restaurants to provide food for volunteers, while others

include using Valley businesses to create T-shirts for the event or

provide portable toilets.

“We’ll also be calling on the local trades — carpenters, plumbers,

electricians — to help us with things that volunteers don’t normally do,” he said.

Lining up committee volunteers now is a priority, Donnelly added,

because it will take time to organize such a large project. He said Habitat

for Humanity traditionally builds two or three houses at a time, unlike the

20 slated to go up next summer along the Snoqualmie Parkway. Currently,

the organization is building 12 homes in Newcastle.

Habitat for Humanity’s goal is to “eliminate poverty housing around

the world,” said Donnelly, who recently returned from a blitz build in

Portugal. Since 1976, the international organization has built 100,000

homes around the world, and hopes to build another 100,000 homes in the next

five years. During a massive blitz build in Florida, the organization

constructed 100 homes in two weeks.

“And it’s not just poverty housing,” Donnelly said. “It’s plain and

simple affordable housing that Habitat is trying to meet the needs of.”

In the Valley, that can be hard to come by.

“People can qualify for a mortgage, but they can’t find a

house,” Donnelly said. “We want to

create some housing in the outlying areas where people can work and live in

the same community.”

In order to qualify for a Habitat for Humanity home, a person or

family cannot earn more than 50 percent of the median income in King County

_ about $34,000 a year. The organization retains ownership of the land,

and the value of the home grows at a fixed percentage annually.

Approved homeowners must put in 500 hours of “sweat-equity work,” which can

mean building their own home, working at another blitz build or volunteering

at the office in Redmond.

Donnelly said that in April, the organization would likely build a

sample house in anticipation of the work to be completed in August. Also at

that time, Habitat for Humanity will begin accepting volunteers who will

construct the homes.

By the end of this year, however, work will begin on the

community center. Donnelly said the center’s foundation should be finished by

the first of the year, and the completed building should be done in time

to serve as the operational headquarters of the blitz build. Infrastructure

improvements for the site, such as road building and bringing in

electricity, have been completed.