While the theme was leadership development, a sense of coming together for a higher purpose also pervaded the Habitat for Humanity’s second National Leadership Conference.

Held at Shocco Springs Baptist Conference Center in Talladega, the conference officially began Tuesday, Nov. 3, and lasted through Thursday, Nov. 5. Everyone was welcome to travel to the center Monday, Nov. 2, to get settled, but no training activities were scheduled for that day. Friday, Nov. 6, is also a travel day, allowing everyone to say their goodbyes to friends new and old and giving local affiliates a chance to visit family members while they are in the area.

Graham Green, an event and operations senior specialist on the Habitat for Humanity National service staff, said more than 600 members representing 36 states from Maine to Hawaii and 150 affiliates were in attendance at the conference.

Most of the members learning about disaster preparedness, construction safety and sustainable building practices were in their second and third years with Habitat, but the only other thing most of the attendees had in common was never expecting to work for Habitat for Humanity full time.

“Just like so many people here, I didn’t see myself doing this,” Green said. “I had volunteered with my fraternity in college a few times, but now I have been with Habitat four years, and am an alumnus of AmeriCorps VISTA.”

AmeriCorps is an affiliate of Habitat for Humanity, which is divided into three parts. AmeriCorps National Direct allows volunteers to tutor and mentor youth, assist crime victims, build homes, restore parks, mobilize community volunteers and strengthen the capacity of the organizations where they serve. This is a direct way volunteers can see the impact of their work on the community.

AmeriCorps VISTA, or Volunteers in Service to America, work for non profit organizations or local government agencies in their communities to fight illiteracy, improve health services, create businesses, strengthen community groups and more. These people use their passion, commitment and hard work to create or expand programs designed to bring individuals and communities out of poverty. This is a more indirect way for volunteers to impact their communities.

Finally, there is AmeriCorps NCCC, or National Civilian Community Corps. This is a group in the age range of 18-24 providing community service based out of five campuses in Colorado, California, Maryland, Mississippi and Iowa.

One of the travelers from AmeriCorps, Seth Anders, said it was his second time coming to Alabama, and that he enjoyed how hospitable everyone at the conference was. He said while there were different age groups represented at the conference, it was enjoyable to find people with similar mindsets to share experiences.

“I am a construction leader in California responsible for welcoming groups and giving safety talks while keeping things fun and educational,” Anders said. “I am so happy there is a program out there like this for future volunteers because I remember finishing college and being at a loss for my next step. I was in architecture before, but now I get to meet 50 new people a day to work on my social skills and move across the country for jobs. The homeowners’ stories also help to keep me grounded.”

Maureen O’Leary, associate director of Habitat for Humanity International, said it can be rewarding, but also challenging, for someone to volunteer for their first year with AmeriCorps National Direct or AmeriCorps VISTA.

VISTA volunteers are granted a living allowance and provided with insurance, but the allowance is modest and relocation costs are not covered. However, she said some members have successfully saved money will working with VISTA because some affiliates have worked to provide housing for members or found ways to obtain grants allow them to find work at night to supplement their cost of living.

“Many people who have participated in AmeriCorps have switched and said they have changed their whole focus after committing to the program,” O’Leary said. “I was inspired when I was overseas and wanted to see what was going on in my own country, and see what citizens were doing.”

Louisa Galassini, much like Anders, worked as an architect before deciding she didn’t want to reinforce the status quo in real estate anymore.

Galassini has worked with the AmeriCorps VISTA program in San Francisco for three years, working on a variety of jobs including taking foreclosed homes in the Bay area and making them more environmentally-friendly before bringing new homeowners in.

Denise Simms, on the other hand, has only been with Habitat for Humanity for about two months after years of working in real estate in Florida.

Simms grew up in south Georgia and spent most of her adult life working in the housing market of Florida.

She decided to send her resume to Habitat because she needed to do something different and wound up becoming the volunteer coordinator for the Foley affiliate of Habitat in Baldwin County.

“We are working on a variety of things such as the Apostle bill, Youth United and getting our volunteer families to do more volunteer work,” Simms said. “We are trying to bring our community together by reaching out to the Hispanic community and the black community and getting more than just the same volunteers involved. I have just been so blessed over the years, I decided it was time to do something to bless somebody else. They told me it was GPS, ‘God’s Positioning System.’”

Green said Simms’ work in Foley was a demonstration of Habitat for Humanity founder Millard Fuller’s theory of the “theology of the hammer” at work. When Fuller began the organization in 1976, it was with the belief that by helping others, he could create a housing ministry to share his faith and help those in need.

Martiel Beatty, an AmeriCorps VISTA leader, based in Washington D.C., is in charge of supporting VISTA members across the country in 36 states. While they are building programs for their sites, Beatty is there for support, brainstorming and generally as a resource they can call, e-mail or be a point person for Habitat for Humanity International while working on events.

Keynote speaker for the event Clive Rainey has the honor of being known as the first volunteer for Habitat for Humanity. He has spoken at the closing of the service during leadership conferences for the last five years, but he said this year will be his last.

Rainey plans to retire and move to Guatemala next year, where he will continue to minister, but in a different way. In Guatemala, where Habitat has built roughly 30,000 homes, he will minister to street children and try to help seal up children’s legal rights and women’s legal rights in Xela. He said spousal abuse is out of control there, and many children are treated as pests instead of cared for.

Rainey has had an interesting religious background, and he hopes to use that to his advantage in Guatemala. He was christened as a Catholic with the first name Marcus, but spent a good deal of his life practicing the Episcopalian faith. He plans to return to his Catholic roots and go to the “local” pronunciation of his name, Marcos.

While Rainey admits he did not drive the first nail into the first Habitat house, he did have a lot to do with the early stages of the organization. He helped secure old buildings and painted, fixed up and patched old houses across the board to prepare for the next step of building. There are four “first” Habitat houses according to Rainey, one at Koinonia Farm in Georgia, one if Africa, one in Americus, Georgia, and one in San Antonio Texas.

“I have to tell people that I wasn’t within 1,000 miles of any of the first houses when they were built,” Rainey said.

Peter Rumsey is the director of National Service programs for Habitat, meaning that he places the more than 600 members serving with more than 150 affiliates and helps in the construction of about 1,700 homes for more than 2,500 families.

Rumsey said the final night of the conference was reserved for announcing the site of the 2010 Build-A-Thon, a signature event that brings all the members of AmeriCorps together each spring to build homes in an area in need.

“These conferences and the Build-A-Thon give us a chance to bring together enthusiastic, service-minded people for training, networking and skill development,” Rumsey said. “We have brought members together to build for 14 years and we plan to continue to help our affiliate in Cedar Valley, Iowa, this year.”

Jeff Capps is executive director of Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity, and he said he came in to an office recently suffering from a flood and about to hold the Build-A-Thon.

Capps moved to the Hiawatha, Iowa, office last April, after working for a Habitat affiliate in Memphis, Tenn., for about four and a half years. Seven weeks later, Capps needed to organize the Build-A-Thon when all the members of AmeriCorps would show up to help build houses.

The members managed to build 20 houses in one week, with a total of 22 houses being built that year after everything was finalized. Capps said now he feels like he has something to take to local lenders when he is asking for their assistance, because he can show that he heads a viable organization.

Tim Solano is a Habitat homeowner and program specialist for Washington and Oregon working in Texas. His story began with an abusive father and an early introduction to drugs that led to his realization by his early 20s that it was easier to list the drugs he had not tried that to list the ones he had.

In 1988, at the age of 26, Solano, got married to the mother of three children he is proud to have raised on his own.

When his children were young, the family of four lived in a trailer in a rough neighborhood with black mold, soft floors and polybutylene pipes. No one wanted to allow their children to come over to play with his children in those conditions.

Now, his oldest daughter is in medical school, his son is a Marine studying public affairs and his youngest daughter is still at home, but seems interested in being involved in veterinary sciences when she is older.

Solano didn’t go to college until he was 36, and received his master’s in journalism from Mayborn Institute in 2007.

He has studied in Paris and Prague and speaks Spanish and French.

The turn of events began when he was interning at The Dallas Morning News and he was assigned to cover a Habitat for Humanity application seminar. They turned the tables on him and told him he would be a perfect candidate for a Habitat home.

“My family finished our sweat equity hours in record time for the North Collin County affiliate,” Solano said. “It took us just eight weeks to complete 350 hours. We worked through Thanksgiving delivering turkeys. We unloaded Christmas trees. We helped other homeowners build their homes. I rang bell for the Salvation Army. We never missed an opportunity to work our hours down. My family and I are so passionate about this great organization.”

For information about how you can get involved with Habitat for Humanity and its affiliates, go to www.habitat.org.