HANOVER COUNTY, Va. -- Hanover Habitat for Humanity reopened their ReStore this week as Phase One of the state's reopening began in most of Virginia last week.
The store was previously shut down due to the stay at home order in light of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Habitat for Humanity store generates a majority of their income to aid in their mission to build homes, which had been halted.
"Not having it open. It has been pretty difficult for us," said Linda Tiller, Executive Director for Hanover Habitat for Humanity.
"We had a little cluster of six homes we were developing. We had three of them under construction side by side when all of this happened, but we had to stop. We had to stop bringing groups of volunteers for their own safety."
With the development of the homes brought to a halt, Tiller says they were still able to manage finishing one home thanks to a select few.
"A very small group of very dedicated, mostly retired folks who worked with us every single week… they managed to complete one of the homes and luckily that home buyer will be able to get the keys to her home on Wednesday," said Tiller.
During the pandemic, Habitat for Humanity has continued their mission of helping people have a decent place to live through supporting legislation to help people and nonprofits during the pandemic.
In Hanover, they have even been able to raise funds through donations.
"Our community has really, really come forward and we've raised I think close to $50,000 over the last six or eight weeks through this campaign and its certainly helped us because it helped us to bring back some staff that were on furloughed and helped us pay for materials and keep moving along," Tiller explained.
Within the next few weeks, Habitat for Humanity in Hanover says they plan to start the process on bringing back volunteers.
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