Habitat for Humanity will be breaking ground on Thursday, January 21st in Airdrie's community of Ravenswood.

The official groundbreaking will take place just after 12:00 pm where Mayor Peter Brown, MP for Banff-Airdrie Blake Richards, Habitat for Humanity Southern Alberta President and CEO Gerrad Oishi, and all 6 families will be attending. 

Tyler Smith, a student who won the Genworth Canada's 2014 Meaning of Home Contest for students in grades 4, 5 and 6, will also be attending, after he graciously donated his grant from the Genworth Project to Habitat for Humanity Southern Alberta.  

Once construction is complete, six local families who have already been pre-selected, will be provided with affordable home ownership.

The families who will be receiving the homes will contribute 500 hours of "sweat equity" towards building their own home or for other Habitat projects.

Habitat for Humanity says it is their mission to break the cycle of poverty by working with communities like Airdrie, and building affordable housing.

The home ownership model uses volunteer labour and donations of money and materials - building and rehabilitating safe, affordable houses alongside partner families. 



Habitat homes are sold to partner families with no down-payment, no-interest mortgages with the monthly mortgage payments going into a revolving fund, which is used to build more homes for more families.

To date, the Habitat for Humanity Southern Alberta division has built and rehabilitated 250 homes.

Leah Crawford - airdrienews@goldenwestradio.com