For Heather and her daughter Elise, Aug. 24 represented the culmination of 18 months of weekly labor on Nora Porter Loop in Port Townsend, and while the work they and their friends, family members and fellow volunteers put into the site completed the 12th house for Habitat For Humanity in that neighborhood, it also gave the mother and daughter a “safe, secure” home. “Where we were living before was not as safe,” said Heather, who declined to give her last name because of her work as a victim advocacy outreach coordinator for Dove House Advocacy Services. “And especially when you’re working with victims of trauma during the day, it helps when you can come home at the end of the day and relax.” While the mother-daughter duo did find it difficult to work through the Pacific Northwest’s more inclement weather, they simply “powered through” to fulfill the promise of a home where they would feel more free to “invest our personalities into the surroundings.” Pastor Coe Hutchison of Grace Lutheran Church described the houses built through Habitat For Humanity’s volunteer and “sweat equity” labor as a physical manifestation of “Love thy neighbor,” and the on-site representatives of Habitat For Humanity of East Jefferson County noted that Swift Plumbing had donated its labor and resources for the past 13 years. East Jefferson County Habitat For Humanity President Chuck Thrasher noted that ground was first broken on the 12-lot Birkenfeld Community on Nora Porter Loop five years ago this month, and since then, volunteers have invested 94,000 hours of labor on Habitat homes, with ground set to be broken on East Jefferson County’s 51st Habitat home in September. “What this means for this neighborhood is that its homeowners finally won’t be woken up on the weekends to the sounds of saws and hammers,” said Jamie Maciejewski, executive director of Habitat For Humanity of East Jefferson County. Jamie Maciejewski and Homeowner Services Manager Melanie Krupa agreed that the benefit of this home is that it allows Heather to continue to live and work in the community, with Maciejewski thanking the sponsors who have made an affordable mortgage possible for Heather, so that she and her daughter can continue to live in their Habitat home for the long term. After Heather tearfully expressed her gratitude to the crowd, Dave Harrah, one of the house sponsors, handed her the keys to her new home, half-jokingly noting his own nervousness over the prospect of losing them before he could hand them over.