BLUE BELL >> More than 200 people gathered at The Farmers Daughter Thursday night for Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County’s second annual Block Party Gala, where Villanova University was honored as the organization’s Partner of the Year.
Longtime volunteers Paul and Marge Bebus were also recognized for their decades of dedicated service dating back to the founding of the Montgomery County chapter in 1989.
“It was a great honor and it was a great night,” said Villanova business professor Dr. Bob Nydick, who presented the Partner of the Year award to the university’s president, the Rev. Peter Donohue, and alumni association President Terence Delaney.
Nydick, who has served on Habitat of Montco’s board for eight years – three of them as president – first got involved with the organization when one of his students asked him to be a faculty advisor on a spring break service trip to Seattle in 2000.
Since then, he and his students have served at dozens of Habitat builds across the country.
In 2005, Nydick took a contingent of students on several trips to the Gulf Coast to help with rebuilding efforts after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Upon their return, students in Nydick’s business decisions class raised more than $50,000 to donate to various Katrina relief charities. That tradition continues, with a local focus, in Montgomery County today.
“This semester I’m asking my students to work with our development people at Habitat to help improve our contribution rates,” said Nydick, who also has the class evaluating potential locations for a second Habitat ReStore, a nonprofit home improvement and donation center.
“That’s the type of collaboration we have,” he added. “The university has sort of adopted Montgomery County Habitat.”
Marianne Lynch, Habitat for Humanity of Montgomery County’s executive director, noted that Villanova students, faculty and alumni have spent more than 7,000 hours volunteering for the organization since 2002, and provided leadership by serving on Habitat’s board and committees. The university is also the nation’s largest collegiate Habitat for Humanity service break participant.
“The block party is our annual signature event and we had a great turnout,” Lynch said. “This is something that we’ll be doing going forward to highlight the work we do in the community, and we couldn’t have done it without the sponsorship of the Conicelli Motor Group, who sponsored the entire event.”
Lynch also offered special thanks to Norristown council President Sonya Sanders, Vice President Derrick Perry, council members Hakim Jones and Valerie Scott Cooper, as well as Municipal Administrator Crandall Jones and Director of Planning and Municipal Development Jayne Musonye, who were all in attendance.
Lynch said Habitat for Humanity is actively operating two neighborhood revitalization zones – one in Norristown and one in Pottstown – and will complete six homes, including four in Bridgeport, by the end of the fiscal year.
The organization is also completing 20 repairs and has enrolled 30 families in the Almost Home financial empowerment program, which Lynch and her team are planning to expand to 150 families over the next several years.
At the gala, Lynch announced the Campaign for a Solid Foundation initiative, a three-year comprehensive plan to get 30 families into homes and perform at least 100 repairs for the county’s elderly and disabled residents.
“We are also intending to extend to a third revitalization community within that time,” Lynch said.
“We probably will be expanding to be with more service providers so that we can be very collaborative in our approach but also very strategic in how we execute all of this.”
