Annual Dinner Honors Long-Term Volunteers

FCHH held its 8th Framing for the Future Annual Dinner & Meeting on June 18th at the lovely Burgundy Basin Inn, in Pittsford. About 100 guests were in attendance to help us honor and recognize our outstanding volunteers, both on and off the construction site.

(Left to Right) Meredith Reiniger, Rose Rossi-Williams, Donna Murano, Ruth McNamara and Bill Gavett enjoy some pre-dinner drinks and socializing.

Volunteer Quille Westbrook provided the table centerpieces for our event, which incorporated fresh, beautifully-arranged flowers from her garden.

Outgoing board president Tom Covell delivered an upbeat "state of the affiliate" message which reminded guests of our noteworthy accomplishments over the past year. Despite a difficult economic picture, FCHH continues to maintain its current build rate of 7 to 9 houses per year, as the organization works to identify creative ways to raise funds and secure partnerships within the business community for both construction and the ReStore.

Attendees voted to updates to our by-laws, which included making the ReStore Committee an official committee of our Board of Directors. New board members Dana Abramson, Kevin Duhamel, Sharon Stiller and Lynn Woolf were elected, and Terri Ercole was elected to our Leadership Council. Bob August, Jack Baron, Tom Covell, and Jeff Lewis were re-elected for new terms on the Board of Directors.

We recognized Jan Barrett, Tom Covell, Jeff Gerstenberger, Donna Murano, Dawn Pruszynski, Meredith Reiniger, Tom Rogers, Francine Conwell, Beth Tugwell and Dan Turner for 5 years or more of dedicated volunteer service on our Board of Directors, Leadership Council and on committees.

Hammer & Saw volunteers were honored for their many years of service on house construction and in our Cabinet Shop:

• For 15 years of service, a saw was presented to Otto Muller-Girard
• For 10 years of service, a hammer was presented to Al Santos and David Schafer
• For 5 years of service a level was presented to Tom & Liz Chrzanowski, Mark Eckert, Gene Ligtenberg and Frank Serr

Our House Builder Award was presented to Lois Rixner for outstanding support as an office volunteer.

Our Community Builder Award was presented to the Rochester Garden Club for their generous and ongoing contributions of trees to beautify our Habitat homes.

The Roger Cross Leadership Award was presented to Nixon Peabody LLC for the company's contributions of legal services.

The President's Award was presented to Ruth McNamara for her many years of work as chair of the Family Selection Committee.