When Colorado Springs Utilities staff volunteered to landscape two Pikes Peak Habitat homes recently, they were joined by a future Pikes Peak homeowner who will be living next door to the yard she was helping beautify!
Karmen, our 4th Veterans Build homeowner, was working on sweat equity hours that day. Her own home dedication is quickly approaching — we’ll hand her the keys on July 8 — so as she helped place flowers, spread rock, and plant a tree in Perla’s yard, she got to watch the progress on her own home, too.
Karmen took a break to speak with a local media station and chat with me about the landscaping project and the relationships she’s already developed with her future neighbors.
She’s helped landscape several yards in the Pikes Peak Habitat neighborhood at The Ridge at Sand Creek. This particular day was cloudy and chilly — weather she says was perfect for hard outdoor work.
“We’re getting the plants in and the rocks down,” she explains. “It’s pretty fun and exciting to see what’s going on and how to do it.”
She says the experience has helped her visualize how her own yard might look. “I don’t want my house to be just like hers, so it’s always best to see” others’ choices, she notes. And working on the landscaping helps her “get the overall feeling of what yours is going to be like and how to arrange yours.”
Karmen and Perla, who moved into her Pikes Peak Habitat home in February, have gotten to know each other through their involvement with the homeownership program.
“I met Perla when I first started back in August here. We were all communicating,” explains Karmen. “She went to our [ground blessing] and I was at her dedication as well, and we were at Anna’s dedication. So we all built that bond of seeing each other.”
Future Pikes Peak Habitat homeowners attend classes to prepare them for various aspects of homeownership, and those provided additional chances to build relationships. “We went through our maintenance classes together,” Karmen says. “It’s like a whole community of women!”
On Halloween, she took her sons trick-or-treating in their future neighborhood — and they’ve already made new friends! At recent ground blessings and home dedications, they’ve been spotted playing with other children on the block.
In April, Karmen’s future home received its roof, thanks to Owens Corning’s Roof Deployment Project for veterans, which donated the materials. A local company, Integrity Roofing and Painting, supplied the labor.
“We take great pride in our quality and service to all of our clients,” says Aaron Dunbar, Integrity’s director of commercial roofing. “As a veteran-owned and -operated company…giving back to someone that has sacrificed and served our nation is heartfelt by everyone in our company.”
Karmen has incorporated a drive past their future home to the family’s daily routine so they can see the progress. After the roof’s completion, she says it “is the first thing I can see when we turn the corner.” She adds, “I will always be thankful they came and touched my home.”
Her sons are excited about decorating their own bedrooms. For her part, Karmen loves the view of Pikes Peak she’ll have from her new backyard and looks forward to enjoying it over her morning coffee.
In the meantime, she jokes that working on Perla’s home means added pressure to excel. “She’s living next door to me. I don’t want to mess it up,” she says. “I’m going to see her every day, so I’m kind of like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to kill her plants now!'”
On a more serious note, though, she appreciates the chance to contribute to someone else’s dream — just as she’s grateful for the volunteers who are making her own home possible.
“You get to see her overall happiness,. And then you see each and every one’s different reaction,” she says. “So it’s always good to work on someone else’s house and see how they feel, just like you want to see how everyone else feels when working on your house.”
