PLAINFIELD — Employees past and present of Duke Energy are giving back to the community by helping build a Habitat for Humanity home in Plainfield.
Habitat for Humanity builds simple, decent, affordable homes for low income families.
The Duke Energy volunteers built 40 wall panels for the home in the visitors’ parking lot at Duke’s Indiana headquarters in Plainfield.
On Saturday, about 25 volunteers from Duke helped assemble the wall panels on the site where the home is building built.
The community service project was part of the “Century of Service and Innovation” celebration — the company’s year-long celebration of 100 years of service as of Sept. 5, 2012.
Duke employees Suzanne Kesling and Stacy Keister helped organize the project. Kesling is the director for retail customer systems and Keister is a business operations specialist.
“I volunteered for Habitat many years ago,” Kesling said. “We have lots of people come help that have volunteered regularly for many years.”
Keister said this was a way for Duke Energy to reach out to the community in its effort to be a company of service.
“It’s really exciting reaching out to the customers and also an opportunity to network with our co-workers,” Keister said. “Community involvement is part of the atmosphere at Duke.”
As part of the Habitat for Humanity program, families working toward home ownership through the program are required to come out to the build sites and put in “sweat” equity.
“We have five families working toward getting a home right now,” Kesling said. “And it’s so nice to see how eager they are to come out and work. It’s exciting.”
Holly Moneymaker is currently working through the Habitat for Humanity program to hopefully get a new home.
“This has been very interesting,” Moneymaker said. “We learned so much in our construction class — things I never even imagined I would be learning about.”
A single mother, Moneymaker and her two children live in Plainfield.
“I’ve lived here in Plainfield for the last 11 years,” she said. “I like the school district and both my kids have had a good experience here. It’s a good place to bring up kids.”
Although Moneymaker knows the house she’s working on now might not be hers, she is hoping that hers will be in Plainfield.
“I had volunteered on a Habitat build through my church about seven years ago,” she said. “This is so neat seeing it from the start. From the foundation to the floors and walls.
“We are so blessed to have all these volunteers. They have such good hearts. The more people we have, the faster it all comes together.”
Habitat for Humanity has several events planned throughout 2012 to help raise funds for local families.
brenda.holmes@flyergroup.com
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