Roy Peterson and others help complete Hingham Habitat For Humanity house

By Robert Doherty
THE ERICKSON TRIBUNE

Habitat for Humanity has built over 200,000 homes worldwide with over one million people living in habitat homes. Their mission has been unchanged for nearly 30 years, striving for the day when everyone, everywhere has at minimum a simple, decent place to live.

And now the South Shore can add another house to the list.

Recently 23 people, who both live and work at Linden Ponds, helped out at the Habitat for Humanity house in Hingham on Central Street.

‘Eager to help’
“We worked on both the outside of the house and the inside,” says Chris Beukman, pastoral ministries manager at Linden Ponds. “A number of our staff live in Hingham and a number of people moved to Linden Ponds from Hingham, so we were all eager to help out.”

The house they worked on is for Andre and Danielle Lavoie, who have four children.

“Five students who work at Linden Ponds in the restaurant did an amazing job on the inside painting,” says Chris. “We put up all the outside shutters, laid two linoleum bathroom floors, did work on the stairs, did all the finishing and painting upstairs, and caulking throughout the house. We were thrilled to be able to help out.”

Roy’s group
One of the people who came out to help was Roy Peterson, who lives at Linden Ponds. Roy has a long history of volunteering with Habitat for Humanity. He started in their special projects group building handicap ramps. A commercially build ramp would cost as much as 10,000. Amazingly, Roy’s group builds them for about $1,000.

“I’m involved in the wood shop here at Linden Ponds. I gathered seven or eight members of the wood shop and we spent a day working the habitat house in Hingham,” says Roy.