This article originally appeared in the Spring 2024 print newsletter.
This spring, Pikes Peak Habitat for Humanity is saying a bittersweet farewell to construction supervisor Gary Blake, who has been with the organization since 2010. Blake is retiring — and moving out of state — so while we wish him and his wife the best as they begin this new chapter, we’ll also miss him!
Blake has worked in construction for most of his life. “I started drywalling when I was like eight years old!” he recalls. “My dad had a company, and back then, if you had a family business, you participated!”
He later worked in residential drywalling and did stud steel framing for commercial buildings. Then he transitioned to high-end home remodels — which is how he met Pikes Peak Habitat’s then executive director, Paul Johnson.
“He knew me, and he knew my work ethic,” Blake recalls. When the construction superintendent went on vacation, he filled in, supervising a crew in the Woodmen Vistas subdivision. He joined the staff in time for the first Home Depot Build, which brought 650 people to the construction site in one day!
“I stayed because of the good we were doing, the people we were helping,” Blake says. “Working with people who are here to help others, just to help others — they’re not here for their own reward or gain in any way, shape, or form. Almost all of our volunteers are just here so they can help somebody, doesn’t matter who. There’s no, ‘You’re a different class,’ ‘You’re a different race,’ ‘You’re a different religion.’ There’s none of that. We don’t have that in our volunteer base, and it’s been very healing to be around.”
Blake has remained in contact with many of the families he’s worked with over the years, and he’s witnessed how homeownership can transform their lives.
“I have seen them be able to quit jobs that they’ve had since high school,” he says, “because they could afford to change careers or go to school and switch careers.”
He shares a favorite story: One homeowner, a single mom, met a man from California, and they decided to be married near the ocean.
“She had never seen the ocean. Her three daughters had never seen the ocean,” Blake recalls. “Because they had affordable housing, they could take the time to go to California and get married.”
A neighbor — also a Pikes Peak Habitat homeowner — volunteered to sew the wedding dress and the bridesmaid dresses for the couple’s daughters. She and her family attended the ceremony, too.
“She and her husband and her two children had never seen the ocean, but they could afford to go to this wedding,” Blake says. “There were three of my families who went out to that wedding! That’s the kind of neighborhood and friendships they have built.”
After he retires, Blake and his wife plan to move to a home they purchased and renovated in Mississippi. But the mark he’s made on Pikes Peak Habitat — and our volunteers and families have made on him — will endure.
“I was in the trades for years, and those were always houses, because a lot of them weren’t sold yet,” he says. “But here, getting to work with the homeowners side by side, getting to know the families and building for that family, it’s a home from day one. It’s a home before I dig a hole. I really like that!”
