VIDEO, PHOTOS: Warners help with Habitat home build, donate $100,000

UPDATED: Former NFL quarterback Kurt Warner may not consider himself much of a homebuilder, but he and his wife Brenda continue to help flood-affected families in Cedar Rapids find new homes.

“I know if it were left up to people like Brenda and I nothing would get done,” Warner told a group of about 60 volunteers Friday morning at a Habitat for Humanity building site in Robins. “It happens with people like all of you.”

Warner, a Cedar Rapids native, and his wife, an Iowa native, are in Cedar Rapids and Robins today to help with two Habitat for Humanity home building projects and to announce the donation of $100,000 from their First Things First Foundation. As part of the donation, the Warners are challenging Cedar Rapids residents, businesses and organizations to match those funds for 2011, which would fund the construction of at least one more home.

Jeff Kapps, executive director of the Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity, said donations have already come in to realize about two-thirds of that challenge and he expects donations to surpass the $100,000 challenge mark.

The houses are part of 13 Habitat houses in a new Sattler development near Robins. Each will have from two to six bedrooms, depending on the families' needs, Capps said, and all will be provided to the families with a zero percent interest loan.

Each house is built with a team of about 25 volunteers, Capps said.

Included in the group of volunteers this week is a 33-member crew from Broadneck High School in Annapolis, Md. The group of 26 recent graduates and seven adults, part of a high school Habitat for Humanity Club, organized several fund raisers throughout the past year to fund a Habitat trip to Cedar Rapids, said Hope Kondracki, 18, one of the students.

“People here were obviously devastated by that flood and they needed help,” she said. “It's really nice to be able to give them some of that.”

The group didn't know they would be working with former NFL quarterback Warner until they got here.

“I wasn't expecting this at all, it's definitely a nice surprise,” said Joe Ciancaglini, 18, another Broadneck graduate. “It's nice to see professional athletes out doing things like this, that their lives aren't about how much money they can make.”

[nggallery id=263]