by Katie Orlando

CORNELIUS – Manny Rosado thinks the Smithville Community Coalition and Our Towns Habitat for Humanity need even more community involvement to keep people in town and improving the quality of their lives.

Our Towns Habitat for Humanity is working on an “Extreme Rehab” at 19907 N. Ferry St., as part of a neighborhood revitalization effort.

Rosado, Habitat construction manager, told the coalition Monday, June 4, at its monthly meeting, that more community involvement will help Habitat work on at least one house every year in the Smithville neighborhood of Cornelius. Volunteers also learn skills to build and fix more habitat houses and maybe parlay into a career, he said.

“Every home we build in Smithville will be a training home,” Rosado said. That means every workday results in pages added to a training manual.

“We want to say the coalition of Smithville built the home, and Habitat helped,” Rosado said.

Habitat is focusing on improving and revitalizing shuttered homes.

“As long as there are boards on homes in our four towns (Huntersville, Cornelius, Davidson and Mooresville), we need to take care of that,” Rosado said. “Then we can build new homes.”

Applications for Habitat assistance with home repairs are available through Smithville Community Coalition street captains and coalition co-chair Lisa Mayhew-Jones. Contact Mayhew-Jones at nmayhew0@email.cpcc.edu.

“That’s the whole goal, to learn to do these things so we can help each other as a community,” Mayhew-Jones said.

The Smithville Community Coalition is also working to establish a community garden. Plots 4-feet-by-8-feet will be sold for $10, and volunteer Bruce Way will lead the effort. The September garden will include lettuce, collard greens and carrots.

The coalition is also looking to gauge interest in a neighborhood July 4 celebration.

Want to get involved?

Smithville Community Coalition

When: June 25, 7 p.m.

Where: Union Bethel AME Zion Church, 20736 Catawba Ave., Cornelius