Glenda's Family Story

Glenda is a single mom of a teenage daughter and an adult son who has three kids of his own. She works as a patient access specialist, “meaning I deal with a lot of clients and help with scheduling and appointments,” she explains.

Years ago, she relocated to Colorado from her hometown of Albuquerque, NM, with her niece. While her extended family still lives in New Mexico, Glenda plans to remain in El Paso County. “My son is here, and my grandkids now, so I don’t see moving away,” she explains.

But while her grandchildren might be the main attraction of the area, they aren’t the only one.

“We love the mountains!” she says. “We can just go for a 10-, 15-minute drive, and there we are! We love to go hiking a lot, and it’s beautiful. All the lakes, even within the city – it’s really cool to have all of that.”

Their housing situation is less than idyllic, though.

“We live in a small condo,” she says. “It’s nice enough, but the neighborhood’s really kind of scary and sketchy. We don’t go out at night.” She adds, “There’s a lot of fighting and stuff that goes on in the neighborhood.”

Moving into The Ridge at Sand Creek means safety for her family – and also freedom.

“I can have a garden, and I can plant flowers!” says Glenda. “My daughter will have a beautiful place to go outside and read, because that’s what she loves to do.”

She adds, “We’ll have a private backyard, and it’s everything to us to be able to have that.”

Glenda loves to begin her days by going outside to drink her coffee – regardless of the weather. And even in winter, she looks forward to maintaining her garden. Her daughter is a passionate reader who enjoys just about “everything!” says Glenda. “There are times when she’ll be reading four or five books at the same time, but she does a lot of series.”

Places with books are favorite destinations. “She loves libraries! That’s the only way I can get her out of the house,” Glenda says. “If I want to go somewhere, I say, ‘Let’s go to the library, let’s go to a bookstore.’ Oh, that’s it! Then she’s ready to go!”

So in their new backyard, she plans to create a reading nook for her daughter – a peaceful area with a hammock.

In the meantime, Glenda appreciates the chance to work alongside her future neighbors as they literally build their community.

“I like the process of meeting them ahead of time,” she says. “I just recently did my first bit of some volunteer work, and I had one of them there with me, and we worked great as a team. I think I’m going to enjoy knowing them before we get there. It’s just nice to know who you’re going to be around.”

Investing sweat equity in her future home is a challenge – but one she’s excited about.

“I haven’t engaged in physical labor in a long time, because I’ve been living in a little condo, and there’s nothing for me to do there,” she says. “It was quite the experience to be using these muscles that have been a little bit dormant, so I’m actually looking forward to getting physical again! And I think it’s just an awesome thing to help other people build their homes and also help build my own.”

When she shared with her family that she had been accepted into Pikes Peak Habitat’s homeownership program, their responses surprised her.

“My dad was really excited, because he has been giving to Habitat for Humanity for many, many years, and I didn’t even know that!” says Glenda. “I also have a brother who owns a construction company that has donated lots of supplies to Habitat for Humanity in the state he lives in, and so they were very happy.”

For other families who are interested in Pikes Peak Habitat’s homeownership program, Glenda says, “Don’t lose hope!” She shares that she had applied during a previous cycle, but the timing worked better for her this time around. She has a chronic illness that “has debilitated me sometimes to where I don’t even get out of bed,” she explains, and when she applied before, “I probably wouldn’t have been able to do the volunteer work at that time.” Now she has had surgery and is taking medication that helps, “so this was the perfect time!”

She adds, “You just keep going. You can never quit, and I keep fighting. God’s blessed me greatly by doing this. He always has. He’s always been there. And this was the perfect timing because everything is just falling into place right now.”