BATH

Habitat for Humanity/7 Rivers Maine celebrated its 25th anniversary with a presentation at the Maine Maritime Museum in Bath on Wednesday night.

“I am moved by the compassion that I felt tonight, by the love that is in this room — in this organization,” said Bob Beaumont, a retired minister and current hospice chaplain who’s been volunteering with Habitat for Humanity for more than 30 years. “All kinds of wonderful things are happening at Habitat for Humanity/ 7 Rivers Maine.”

The volunteer-driven, nonprofit organization helps to provide affordable housing in Brunswick and Harpswell in Cumberland County, as well as all the communities in Sagadahoc and Lincoln counties. 7 Rivers also operates a ReStore in Topsham that sells donated building materials at a discount to raise money for its projects — approximately $250,000 this year in gross sales, according to Mark Primeau, executive director of 7 Rivers.

Currently, the organization is working on homes on Hope Lane in Brunswick, a four-lot subdivision where they’re building mixed-income housing. The nonprofit’s next project will be 167 Middle St. in Bath. The small, $15,000 lot will be the next site of a Habitat for Humanity home.

While building homes is what Habitat for Humanity is mainly known for, Primeau noted that the organization does much more than that. Unlike its Portland Habitat for Humanity affiliate, 7 Rivers also provides weatherization and repair services, said Primeau. Those services are largely provided through 7 Rivers’ partnership with the Harpswell Aging at Home initiative and other groups in the area.

Bob Bauman leads the team in conducting home repairs and winterization efforts for seniors in Harpswell.

His team of nine volunteers, which he refers to affectionately as Old Guys Fixing Things (OGFT), provides these services free of charge thanks largely to funding from the John T. Gorman Foundation. In a presentation Wednesday night, Bauman shared a poignant example of how his OGFT team is making a difference in Harpswell.

The team’s first project involved serious mold problems in one home that had hospitalized the resident repeatedly over three weeks. The mold was caused by 1 1/2 inches of standing water in a crawlspace underneath the home which was continuously fed through large cracks in the foundation. To fix that, the team sealed the foundation, added a rain gutter to divert the water, and graded the yard so that it didn’t funnel water toward the foundation. They also installed a continuous exhaust fan to prevent the mold problem from recurring and added insulation to other parts of the house to help keep it warm. All of this was done free of charge to the resident.

Michele Ober, the organization’s volunteer coordinator, also announced that she was putting together a volunteer team to build homes abroad next fall through the Global Village program. The group raises money to help build homes in Indonesia already, part of what Ober described as part of Habitat for Humanity’s mission to transform lives around the world.

“We believe that no one lives in dignity until everyone lives in dignity,” she said.

A number of volunteers

were honored at the event for their service with Habitat for Humanity. Chris Turner received the Golden Hammer Award, which honors volunteers who have “shown a proven commitment to building homes.” For his willingness to always go above and beyond, John Kennedy was given the Executive Director’s Award. And for supporting Habitat’s mission in a multitude of ways, Thom and Sue Sikes received the President’s Award. Two community partner awards were given to organizations who had worked with 7 Rivers in the past year: Dead River Company and Bath Savings Institution.

“One of the big things tonight is for us to recognize those volunteers that have been volunteering for years and years and years and the new ones who keep coming — because it doesn’t happen without the volunteers,” said Primeau.

nstrout@timesrecord.com

What they do

• THE VOLUNTEER-DRIVEN, nonprofit organization helps to provide affordable housing in Brunswick and Harpswell in Cumberland County, as well as all the communities in Sagadahoc and Lincoln counties. 7 Rivers also operates a ReStore in Topsham.