Celebrating Two Decades of the Atlanta Women’s Build

In 2003, two friends had the idea to gather a group of their peers and sponsor a build. Neighbors helping neighbors is a Habitat tradition, but this group was different. This time the neighbors were all women.

Twenty years later, the Atlanta Women’s Build continue each year to grant a single mother a home.  

Friends Barbara and Polly served on the Atlanta Habitat board for years and were very familiar with the organization and the mission.  

“She and I had a conversation in which she said, ‘I would really love to see a group of friends and sponsor and build a house.’ And I said, ‘Well, how would you feel about a women’s build?’” Barbara said.  “I maybe heard about the other one that had existed. And she loved that. I mean, that was kind of part of her mission in life is to promote women.”

Barbara was speaking of the original all women’s build that took place a decade prior in 1993 in which seven women’s organizations and two women’s colleges teamed up to build a home in Reyonldstown.  

Polly and Barbara spoke to then Habitat CEO Larrie Del Martin and she was happy to put them on the calendar if they raised the capital necessary.

“We started fundraising mostly from our friends and we had a lot of mutual friends and Polly had more friends than anybody,” Barbara remembered.

As it was 2003, this was a task that took some physical letter writing. Not only were the women looking to raise capital, but they were also looking for women who wanted to join the actual build. At the time, there was an appeal to women to build. Barbara believes that a lot of the women were excited to be a part of something different that was both empowering and impactful.  

“We had something we call the builders circle, which were donations over $1000 or more and got about 40 people to donate that and all the donors were individual people at that point,” Barbara said.  

As promised, once the money was raised Larrie put the all-women’s build on the calendar. Funnily enough, one of the bigger obstacles of getting the first build off the ground was finding someone who will supply lunch on the build days.  

At the first build the Atlanta Mayor, Shirley Franklin and President of the City Council, Cathy Woolard were honorary chairs and came out to the first day of the build.  

For the most part, none of the women had any build experience but the House Leader on the build did a great job in making sure that all the women felt comfortable and confident in their task.  

“One thing with this women’s build is I think they’re probably more nails in those houses. I think women tend to want to be sure it’s done right, and so instead of one nail, it’s ‘oh, let’s put one more in and be on the safe side,’” Barbara joked.  

After the first build, the founding duo was ready to do it all over again. But in those first few years they would take year off because they felt they couldn’t ask their friends for the kind of money so quickly. The first three builds took place in 2003, 2005, and 2007.  

Now 20 years later, the Atlanta Women’s Build is a proud tradition and even managed to build 2 homes in the same year twice. Since its inception, this group has built 19 homes for single mothers in Atlanta and that number will continue to grow.  

“When you think of it that way. I think that’s a pretty good feeling and I hope that it just keeps going and continues to thrive and be a vibrant sort of volunteer thing that it has been,” Barbara said.