History Overview (Text-only) 1965-1976 1977-1983 1984-1989 1990-1992 1993-1995 1996-1997 1998-2000 Home Get Involved Where We Build How It Works True Stories

Healing comes to the site of a civil rights clash in Selma, Ala., as 43 churches -- black and white -- come together during "Building on Faith." Selma was the site of a violent confrontation between civil rights marchers and state law enforcement officers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in March 1965. The 1999 "Building Beyond the Bridge" project saw 20 homes built in a week. HFHI's "First Ladies Build" project kicks off in Arkansas as First Ladies and 300 women build a home in April. Through the program, governors' wives across the country will build homes in or near their state capitals with women construction crews. The First Ladies Build is the premier program of the HFHI's Women Build Department. Hurricane Mitch's mudslides destroy many hillside shacks in El Salvador and other Latin American countries. HFHI establishes a Disaster Response Office to aid in pre-disaster risk reduction and disaster recovery and rehabilitation. Current recovery programs focus on hurricane damage in Central America and tornado damage in Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia and Kansas. 1998 -- Habitat for Humanity ranks as the 15th largest homebuilder in the U.S., according to a ranking done by "Professional Builder" magazine. The ranking was based on the number of house closings through Dec. 31, 1997. 1998 -- Eighty affiliates in 33 states celebrate their 10th anniversaries. 1998 -- HFHI's 500th campus chapter, St. Norbert College in DePere, Wis., dedicates the 100th house built in 1998 by college and high school students. 1998 -- Maxwell House concludes a two-year partnership with Habitat for Humanity in which the company donated $2 million in matching funds to promote the building of 100 Habitat houses in 100 weeks with 100 Habitat affiliates in the U.S. 1999 -- The Jimmy Carter Work Project '99, in the Philippines, is the largest JCWP ever, with 14,000 volunteers from 32 countries participating. Although the goal for the six sites was 250 houses, the volunteers evidently took the theme "Let's Build Together" seriously and constructed 293 houses. 1999 -- Millard Fuller receives the National Jefferson Award from the American Institute for Public Service in the category of Greatest Public Service Benefitting the Disadvantaged. 1999 -- The house building record is broken yet again, this time by a construction crew in New Zealand. The Manakau HFH had appliances installed, sod laid and an inspector satisfied in three hours, 44 minutes and 59 seconds. 1999 -- A new program, the 21st Century Challenge, encourages communities to set a date by which they will eliminate local poverty housing. 1999 -- HFHI relocates its Latin America/Caribbean office from Americus to San Jose, Costa Rica, in an effort to move services closer to the field. 2000 -- A HFH affiliate in Gisborne, New Zealand, dedicates five houses one minute after midnight on Jan. 1, 2000, as part of the city's "Gisborne 2000" celebration. Gisborne is the first city in the world to see the first light of the new millennium. 2000 -- Decentralization continues as the Asia/Pacific office moves to Bankok, Thailand, and the Africa/Middle East department moves to Pretoria, South Africa. 2000 -- The Jimmy Carter Work Project 2000 will take place in three locations across the country. In New York City, 20 houses will be built, including Habitat's 100,000th house. In Jacksonville, Fla., 100 houses will go up, and 35 houses will be constructed in Sumter County, Ga.