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The weather was windy and wet but the timing couldn’t have been more dramatic as we dedicated our Lowe’s Women Build home on Nov. 15th. The house at 60 North 1st Street was built by women volunteers from communities across North Jersey and is now owned by the family of Elide and Jean-Claude Douge. Like all Habitat homeowner families, they put in their 400 hours of volunteer labor. Then Elide went into labor of her own and gave birth to a baby boy just an hour before the house dedication. With Elide resting in the hospital with the new baby, Jean-Claude represented the family along with their five-year-old son, Jehu. Women Build volunteers and other friends of Habitat gathered for a brief but moving dedication ceremony conducted by Rev. Stafford Miller, Rev. Sheila Holmes and Rev. John Algera. Those volunteers included singer/songwriter Patti Scialfa (Springsteen), the official “First Lady” of our Women Build Project. She was joined by her mother Vivian, teenager daughter Jessica and mother-in-law, Adele Springsteen. All four had worked on the house. The new house is part of a two-year national Women Build program sponsored by Lowe’s. Bank of America was the lead corporate sponsor for the Paterson house. IKEA donated custom cabinets for the kitchen and Greenbaum Interiors of Paterson provided generous financial support and construction volunteers.
The Douge family
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