GIVERS
Meredith Kittrell
R
Building a better world
RALEIGH ARTIST MEREDITH Kittrell likes to roll up her sleeves, create something new, and make a difference. So in 2002, when she learned about the annual Holiday Home Tour of Habitat for Humanity of Wake County, she volunteered to work on the tour. Since then, she has organized and chaired the event. She also served for seven years on Habitat’s board
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by TODD COHEN of directors and now serves on its advisory board. Four years ago, she helped organize Women Build, a Wake Habitat effort modeled on a national Habitat initiative that brings women together to raise funds and build homes. The group has since built eight homes for local families. This year – Wake Habitat’s 30th anniversary – Women Build is building two Habitat homes. Women are raising all the money for the project and have been volunteering Thursdays, Fridays,
and Saturdays since September to build the homes, which should be complete in December. “I like the hands-on work, the physical nailing of the roof or the foundation-building,” says Kittrell, a painter who will be 57 November 13 and is a co-owner of Roundabout Art Collective, a gallery on Oberlin Road. “I’ve learned to put up vinyl siding and windows. Oftentimes, you’re standing and nailing right beside the homeowner you’re actually building the house for. That’s a photographs by JILLIAN CLARK
