Winter 1997 Newsletter

Formatting Update: July, 1998

Building Houses and Friendships

by Laura Duncan

It seems difficult for Sue Siegenthaler to talk about the Huynh family without smiling. Her eyes shine and her voice is full of enthusiasm as she describes her role as their Habitat Family Partner. "Most of the time I focus on the things that need to be done day-to-day, " she says, "but every so often I step back and realize that I'm helping this family's dream of owning their own house come true. It's a wonderful feeling."

Sue Siegenthaler was Habitat Family Partner with the Huynh family.

Sue describes Ngon Huynh, his wife Cao Mien Nguyen and their large extended family as "very warm people, the kind of people for whom human connections are important. They involve people in their lives," she says, "and involve themselves in other people's lives." Ngon and Mien went to her birthday party and invited her to celebrate the Vietnamese New Year with the family. They even helped her move, completely unsolicited. "Do you need help?" Ngon asked her. No, she said, she thought she had enough people to help. "Do you need a truck? I have a friend with a truck." Ngon brought the truck by at 7 am on a Saturday morning and spent the day helping her move. Sue says it’s hard not to be touched by the Huynh family and suspects that even after their official relationship ends, they'll be friends for a long time.

She's also been impressed by their hard work and initiative, their desire and efforts to be true Habitat participants rather than simply recipients. Once they finished their 500 "sweat equity" hours, the Huynh family were at the building site nearly every weekend, contributing hours to other families. They're a "very positive, very optimistic, and very generous" family and are determined to be contributing members of the Judkins Park community. They're also genuinely grateful for her help, and show their appreciation in ways that "go above and beyond what's been delivered."

As a Family Partner, Sue acts as a liaison between the Huynh family and Habitat, representing the concerns of both. Her primary job is to provide support for the family, helping them to negotiate the complicated and sometimes confusing process of buying a home, especially difficult in a foreign language and culture. She sees her role as one of facilitating communication: explaining the documents, the procedures, the concepts and making sure the family understands its commitments and obligations. Often one of the most challenging things for Family Partners is to determine when to offer help and when to encourage independence, but Sue's not had to deal with that issue working with the Huynh family, who are so enthusiastically involved in the process and self-motivated. She estimates she spends eight to sixteen hours a month working with the family, but finds it effortless, "like keeping in touch with friends."

This experience has been Sue's first as a Family Partner. When she moved to Seattle from New York, she wanted to find a way to become involved in the community here. She comes from a family for whom community service and a strong work ethic were highly valued. She'd grown up in a cooperative community near Chicago that was intentionally diverse and spent a year as a Vista volunteer after college doing refugee resettlement with Indochinese families. The idea of volunteering for Habitat really appealed to her, but she wasn't able to make the time commitment to work on site. At a dinner party, she happened to meet a Habitat board member who told her about the Family Partner Program. The idea of working in partnership with the families to help them achieve such an important goal, and the opportunity to get to know them really appealed to her.

Seattle Habitat for Humanity needs more Family Partners like Sue Siegenthaler. If you would like to volunteer, call Lynn Schut, Chair of the Family Partner Committee, at 283-6358.