Brandis Deitz has been working hard to own a home for a long time. Her dream is about to come true, as she and her three children will be moving into the new house Habitat for Humanity is building on Union Street in Mauston. The whole family is excited about the location and has grown tired of living outside of town. If construction stays on schedule, the family will move in this summer.

Brandis, a single mother, works as a Phlebotomist at Mile Bluff Medical Center. She grew up in Tomah, but has lived in the Mauston area for the last 14 years. Brandis lives in a two bedroom apartment with her three children. Amber (13) and Avery (9) go to school in Mauston while Brenon (3) has not started going to school yet. Their apartment is too small for the four of them, and is very hard to heat. Space heaters keep them warm, but their energy costs have skyrocketed.

Everyone in the family is excited about several aspects of their new home. Brandis is looking forward to consistent and low energy costs. Brenon is very happy that he will have more space for his toys while the girls love riding the bus to school and are glad to be back on the bus route. One thing they can all agree on: they are relieved that they won’t have to move so frequently.

The Deitz family will contribute hundreds of hours of “sweat equity” to help build their new home, and Brandis has already spent many hours working in the Habitat office. The family will buy the home with a modest interest-free mortgage offered by Habitat.

Thanks to support from individuals like you and partnerships with local businesses and churches, Habitat for Humanity of Adams-Juneau and the Mauston ReStore raised over $1,300 in our 2013 Holiday Fundraiser. You may have seen our donation jars at a number of locations around Adams and Juneau Counties, where hundreds of donors helped out with the change in their pockets. We are grateful to the community for all the support we received in this event. All proceeds have supported construction on the two houses we are building in Mauston and Adams. These houses will be completed before summer.

In addition to the fundraiser, our Warm Coat Drive ran from late November through the middle of December. Coat collection bins were located at the ReStore, Festival Foods, the Bank of Mauston, Bethany Lutheran Church and Mauston United Methodist Church. Together, we collected more than 100 coats, gloves, and hats of all sizes. All of this winter clothing was distributed alongside the Toys for Tots program and at the Mauston Food Pantry. We are so happy that all these kids and adults have a warm coat to battle the extra cold weather this winter.

Since the foundation of the Mauston Habitat ReStore in 2010, we have received more donations each year. This year has started off well with a huge donation of windows from Nuvo Construction Company. Based in Milwaukee, Nuvo is a contractor that works on projects around the state. They are currently working on a large project at Fort McCoy. Thanks to our existing relationship with Fort McCoy, we were put in contact with Nuvo to receive the excellent windows that they no longer needed.

This donation of more than 200 double-hung Andersen windows is very valuable to the ReStore. We rely on large donations like these to make our store a great place to shop. These windows are now available for sale, so stop by the ReStore and check out our stock. If you own or work at a business with furniture, appliances, or household supplies that can be donated to the ReStore, call us at 608-847-2000. We can pick up and provide proof of donation for tax purposes.