Housing accessibility is one of our region’s great challenges, and we’re proud to see fellow businesses in the homebuilding space using their expertise to make a positive impact in our community.
Today, we’re shining a spotlight on Gaspar’s Construction—a locally owned home design, remodel, and repair company—and their nonprofit partner Rebuilding Together Seattle (RTS). One of more than 120 affiliate organizations around the country, RTS launched in 1989; today, they’re the only nonprofit in the Seattle area that provides home repairs completely free of charge. By focusing on critical repairs as opposed to building new structures, RTS is able to maintain the culture of a community and ensure that its long–term members are able to stay in their homes and age in place.
Since 1989, Rebuilding Together Seattle has restored over 2,600 homes and nonprofit facilities in the greater Seattle area, helping our community’s most vulnerable find safety and health at home. Today, Rebuilding Together Seattle has three home repair programs: Spring Rebuilding Day, Team Build, and Safe at Home. This past year, Rebuilding Together Seattle was able to provide 128 families with the repairs they needed to stay safe and warm in their homes, thanks to volunteers like the team at Gaspar’s.
We spoke with Isaac Gaspar, production manager of Gaspar’s Construction, about the company’s partnership with RTS and the impact they’ve made in the Seattle area.
Q: What is one of your favorite things about RTS?
A: I love that through RTS, we are able to give people the ability to keep their homes and avoid homelessness.
Q: What types of challenges can you face when taking on volunteer projects of this nature?
A: The logistics of every build are different and varied, but typically the list of requested repairs is longer than the time we can give. The other major challenge is making sure everyone gets to participate and add value, especially volunteers with less technical skill.
Q: What does your team do on the day-of?
A: On the day of each build, we split tasks into separate teams and try to divide and conquer the entire list. Our last build took two days, so we broke up the build with different volunteers for each day.
Q: How does participating in the RTS event affect your team?
A: The ability to have a wider range of team volunteers working on the build helps us grow as an overall team as we get to know more about each other through shared experience. I find it helps grow our trust in each other through the group effort.
Q: Would you recommend other businesses to try a project for RTS? Why?
A: If you like to participate in team-building experiences, there’s no better way to do it than volunteering to help others in need in our greater community.
To learn more and get involved, visit rtseattle.org.