Volunteer Spotlight
Written by Pavia Kriegman | September 2005
After growing up in the wide-open spaces of Iowa and Kansas, Leanna Povilaitis was amazed by the crowded and expensive housing conditions in her husband Bill’s native state of New Jersey. She and Bill struggled to save and buy a former summer cottage in Mt. Arlington, and they wondered how other low-to-middle-income families ever managed to own their own homes. She became familiar with the work of Habitat for Humanity when her father retired and volunteered as a photographer for the Elkhart County Habitat in Indiana, and thought that adequate low-income housing was a goal that she might like to work toward.
By 1993, she was working at the Randolph Township Public Library as assistant director and discovered the local affiliate when she was asked by a patron to find guidelines for writing by-laws for Morris Habitat for Humanity. She called the Habitat office and decided that public relations best fit her writing and editing skills.
After several years of helping to write newsletter articles and web site pages, she joined the Board of Directors for a six-year term. She was a founding member of the Bike & Hike fundraising event team in 1999. Since 2004, she has been chair of the Public Relations Team, in charge of editing three newsletters a year, updating the web site, and publicizing fundraising events.
Finding land is unbelievably difficult, but Leanna is finally encouraged that her contributions to publicity are having concrete results. More and more people are volunteering, and more properties than ever are being developed for affordable housing because of agencies and municipalities that have become partners in the mission of Morris Habitat for Humanity.