116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity wraps work on Cedar Rapids home
CEDAR RAPIDS - After being hauled from one plot on Wilson Avenue SW to another, and undergoing months of renovations, a 60-year-old Cedar Rapids house next week will be home to a new family.
Pascazia Nyanzira and her four children will move into the Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity home, now at 2425 Wilson Ave. SW. Plans are in the works to turn the house's initial 7.5-acre plot, at 2012 Wilson Ave. SW, into a city park.
'There are very few projects I've been involved with Habitat ...
that have been so rewarding,” Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity Executive Director Jeff Capps said at a dedication ceremony Thursday.
The project began over a year ago when Dwight Hughes Jr., whose family owned the house and its plot, started work to preserve both the house and the more than 100 trees his grandfather had planted nearby.
'The best use, and the way to save 100 trees, is to build a park,” Hughes said.
The new park in southwest Cedar Rapids and the relocation of the 1955-built house were made possible by a partnership among Hughes's family business, Hughes Nursery and Landscaping, the city of Cedar Rapids and the local Habitat for Humanity chapter.
After recognizing the elected officials and more than 100 volunteers who were involved with the project at the Thursday ceremony, community members donated quilts, groceries and snow shovels to the Nyanziras - as well as a bike for 10-year-old Jeanluc.
Initially from Burundi, Nyanzira and her four children - Meshack, 17, Samuel, 15, Mika, 13, and Jeanluc - moved to the United States in 2007, according to a Habitat for Humanity news release. They currently live in a crowded two-bedroom house.
After Alice Speraw, whose mother once lived in the house, handed her the keys to the home, Nyanzira thanked the crowd through a translator.
'She gives you all a hug,” the translator said. 'She has so much joy in her heart, she can't even explain.”
Reporter Michaela Ramm contributed to this report.
l Comments: (319) 398-8330; molly.duffy@thegazette.com
(From left) Dwight Hughes and Alice Speraw hand Pascazia Nyanzira the keys to her new home as her children Meshack, 17, Mika, 13, Jeanluc, 10, and Samuel, 15, look on during a Cedar Valley Habitat for Humantity dedication ceremony on Thursday, Dec. 22, 2016.
(Michaela Ramm/The Gazette) A house on Wilson Ave. was moved three blocks west on Thursday, June 23, 2016, as a part of a joint effort with the City of Cedar Rapids, the Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity and the Hughes Nursery and Landscaping. The home, which belonged to the Hughes family, will be converted to a habitat home. The land will be developed into a city park.
(Michaela Ramm/The Gazette) A house on Wilson Ave. was moved three blocks west on Thursday, June 23, 2016, as a part of a joint effort with the City of Cedar Rapids, the Cedar Valley Habitat for Humanity and the Hughes Nursery and Landscaping. The home, which belonged to the Hughes family, will be converted to a habitat home. The land will be developed into a city park.
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