Volunteer Spotlight: Erin Grantham

In the past few months we have brought you stories about volunteers who help assist us on build sites. But we have volunteers that do more than hammer nails and spackle walls. This month, we shine our spotlight on one of our administrative volunteers!

Erin Grantham, 26, is one of the many volunteers at Habitat for Humanity who does not wear a hard hat. Instead, Erin works to put together this very newsletter every month.

“I’m not very good with manual labor,” Erin, a graduate of the University of Georgia, laughs. “It took me three hours to hang shelves one time so I’d really hate for someone’s house to be in my hands!” What she is good at is writing and talking to people even if she has never met them.

“My favorite part of the process is talking to the families and the volunteers and really getting their perspective,” Erin explains. “The gratitude and appreciation they each have for each other and the process is just mind blowing.” Erin loves to hear their stories because many times they overlap. She also loves the kind of pay it forward mentality that comes through when speaking with the families.

Erin came to Habitat for Humanity by accident while at Panera searching for a job. She needed an outlet to plug her computer in and asked the woman next to her if she could reach past her table to do so. That woman was Patsy Lee, Project Manager for Habitat for Humanity. Patsy and Erin struck up a conversation which led to an offer to help work on the newsletter. Erin got to put her journalism degree to use and Patsy had someone to help with one of the many tasks she handles on a daily basis.

The process is not very long in putting the newsletter together but it can be difficult juggling schedules between Erin and Patsy as well as anyone they talk to for stories like the Volunteer Spotlight and Meet The… “Patsy and I sat down at the beginning of the year and kind of formulated a loose idea of where each month needed to go in terms of addressing things like build schedules and fundraisers.” After the initial meeting, Patsy and Erin email back and forth and iron down what features will be highlighted each month. Then Erin gets to work; calling and emailing people, locating pictures and icons to use and laying out final stories.

“It’s fun because there is a loose layout and idea but we can play with it each month depending on what we will be focusing on,” Erin said. The biggest challenge can be getting families on the phone and talking. “The first family I interviewed, the Haidairis, had to communicate through the son with the parents. A lot of slang terms you don’t even realize you use cannot be used. It was great because that happened to be an obstacle they had been working hard to overcome and they just did a great job getting everything across to me!”

Erin is grateful for the opportunity to work on our newsletter for not only the skills she continues to develop but also for the people she meets along the way. “It is absolutely incredible to hear these people’s stories and how excited they are to have a home to call their own… then to be able to talk about it? It can be like they won the lottery because they know people care,” Erin says. “And it’s a great feeling to know that I do care and I get to help bring their stories to the people who spend the time and money making these dreams come true.”